Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Republicans do not pay their debts.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Not all heroes wear capes.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Republicans in disarray!

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / DPRK Failed Missile Launch/Test Open Thread

DPRK Failed Missile Launch/Test Open Thread

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While we wait to see what, if anything happens next, here’s a nice shiny open thread for you all to speculate and/or talk about whatever.

From that Business Insider article:

A recent New York Times reportuncovered a secret operation to derail North Korea’s nuclear-missile program that has been raging for three years.

Essentially, the report attributes North Korea’s high rate of failure with Russian-designed missiles to US meddling in the country’s missile software and networks.

Though North Korea’s missile infrastructure lacks the competence of Russia’s, Russians using the same type of missiles achieved a 13% failure rate, while North Korean attempts failed a whopping 88% of the time, according to the report.

But to those in the know, the campaign against North Korea came as no surprise. Dr. Ken Geers, a cybersecurity expert for Comodo with experience in the NSA, told Business Insider that cyberoperations like the one against North Korea were actually the norm.

While the fact that the US hacked another country’s missile program may be shocking to some, “within military intelligence spaces this is what they do,” Geers said. “If you think that war is possible with a given state, you’re going to be trying to prepare the battle space for conflict. In the internet age, that means hacking.”

And to make it a musical open thread:

Have at it!

Reader Interactions

262Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    Not. Happy.

    Is North Korea open to maybe just running some ads during SNL? Paid re-runs of their missile parade footage?

  2. 2.

    Baud

    How would we hack their missiles? I thought we didn’t have much physical presence there, and I assume their missiles aren’t part of the Internet of Things.

  3. 3.

    jl

    I made a comment about the news when I heard it at the bottom of the previous thread. I think the only serious foreign crisis going on is the one created by our unqualified dipshit president.

    This is when I wish the GOP was a real serous old-school political machine that, if they were going to win a damned election, could have forced the Mittbot to the top of the ticket this year.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I don’t mean to be irreverent, but every time I see that BBC “breaking news” logo it looks like a ketchup bottle about to overspill. Really interferes with the actual content of the news.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    Speaking of fail. I no shit have someone on a motorized parasail flying over our neighborhood.

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: From the Business Insider article I linked to:

    North Korea’s internal networks are fiercely insulated and not connect to the larger internet, however, which poses a challenge for hackers in the US, but Geers said it’s “absolutely not the case” that computers need to connect to the internet to be hacked.

    A recent report on Russian hacking in The New Yorker detailed one case in which Russia gained access to a NATO computer network in 1996 by placing bugged thumb drives for sale in local shops near a NATO base in Kabul, Afghanistan. NATO operators bought the thumb drives, used them on the network, and just like that, the Russians were in.

    “That’s where SIGINT (signals intelligence) or COMINT (communications intelligence) comes into collaboration with HUMINT (human intelligence),” said Geers, who described the present moment as the “golden age of espionage,” as cyberwarfare remains nonlethal, unattributable, and almost completely unpunished.

    But the recent missile salvo from North Korea suggests that even a prolonged, sophisticated cyberattack can’t fully derail North Korea’s nuclear-missile program.

    Furthermore, Geers said, because of the limited number of servers and access points to North Korea’s very restricted internet, “If it ever came to cyberwar between the US and North Korea, it would be an overwhelming victory for the West.”

    “North Korea can do a Sony attack or attack the White House, but that’s cause that’s the nature of cyberspace,” Geers said. “But if war came, you’d see Cyber Command wipe out most other countries’ pretty quickly.”

  8. 8.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    Well, I guess I’m just fine with us engaging in this kind of thing – even though it does frighten me. It also pisses me off mightily that we have a *president who thinks it’s cool to facilitate the Russians doing the same to us, just so he can be a “winner” and make even more money.

  10. 10.

    jl

    @Jeffro: That would be dangerous. Trump’s central casting generals might have not war gamed out a good response that kind of asymmetric warfare, and Trump would ignore them.

  11. 11.

    Spanky

    @Baud:

    I thought we didn’t have much physical presence there

    What do you mean by “we”, Kemosabe? We have allies that look an awful lot like North Koreans.

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    I really don’t know what the less good outcome would be. The missile launches, doesn’t harm our battle group and splashes somewhere out to sea. Causing man baby to feel emasculated.
    Or, the missile prematurely blows its load on takeoff and now the whole world laughs at Kim.

  14. 14.

    jl

    @Baud: What kind of question is that for a Baud to ask? If NK is using other countries computer codes to get up to speed on their weapons programs, we (edit: or as commenter above hints, friends or frenemies of ours) just have to keep slipping them code, right?

    The linked story gives one example of Russia slipping the US code in Afghanistan. And we slipped code to Iran to gum up their uranium enrichment program.

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: He’s a little high for my 12ga. I’m thinking .308.
    Son of a bitch is no shit 150 to 200 yards up. If that.

    ETA, ok. That last pass was duck hunting level high on a clear day. I have no idea what the F he is doing.

  20. 20.

    jl

    Is there a record of another war scare triggered by a countries’ weapon systems not working good?

  27. 27.

    hovercraft

    On the one hand, he’s all alone down there so he’s unfettered by “voices of reason”, on the other hand he’s all alone down there so maybe he won’t think he needs to do anything about it until he gets back. I know wishful thinking, I hope a bunch of planes are currently carrying some people to Mar a Lago to hold his hand/stay his hand through this. He’ll be pissed that this intruding on his golf time, and that will make him more erratic than usual.
    Seriously, with this loose cannon, who knows if it’s better to have people whispering in his ear or not. I guess it depends on who’s doing the whispering.
    Lucretia and Svengali keep leaking stories about how influential they are and how they are the real power in the White House then they need to start earning their tittles, you cannot be “Senior Advisors”, and then both fly off to Canada because it’s a holiday right when you know that the situation with North Korea is this unstable. They agreed to take these positions, so now it’s their responsibility to make sure one of them is there to babysit our toddler in chief. This is not like the bullshit tittles they got in their father’s companies, this is real serious stuff and you have to sacrifice for the privilege of serving. WASF

  29. 29.

    Spanky

    @jl: I saw a couple of movies about that. One had Rock Hudson and the other had Slim Pickens. Neither ending was satisfactory.

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: I never invested in a .50 because I always thought transport would be a real bitch if I had to scamper. I thought about my British steel tip 5.56 but once I started I wasn’t sure I could stop. I need to do some reloading for my .308 anyway, so might’s well.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @hovercraft:

    on the other hand he’s all alone down there so maybe he won’t think he needs to do anything about it until he gets back. I know wishful thinking

    I think it’s reasonable to assume it is possible no one has even told him. FNC has their regular programming on air so there’s a real chance he doesn’t know yet.

  35. 35.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    Or it could be that Barron is part of our security, we’ve been assuming he’s not part of the administration , but maybe he too is working for his father, he’s very good with cyber! Maybe Twitler finally did something right.

  37. 37.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Corner Stone:

    He’s a little high for my 12ga. I’m thinking .308.
    Son of a bitch is no shit 150 to 200 yards up. If that.

    I’d go with a 6-iron

  41. 41.

    hovercraft

    @Corner Stone:
    I almost wrote that he may not know, but then I was like nah, even his aides wouldn’t conceal this from him, he’d be pissed as hell when he found out that the whole world knows, and he was kept in the dark.

  42. 42.

    tobie

    Essentially, the report attributes North Korea’s high rate of failure with Russian-designed missiles to US meddling in the country’s missile software and networks.

    Shouldn’t we be thanking Obama for this? He continued funding a program that successfully infiltrated the cyber components of North Korea’s missile system. Little did he know at the time he was also saving us from Twitler’s saber rattling and confrontational tactics. I can’t begin to imagine what would have happened if the US aircraft carrier had been hit.

  43. 43.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Spanky:

    What do you mean by “we”, Kemosabe? We have allies that look an awful lot like North Koreans.

    So do the Chines, who have every reason not to want brinksmanship there.

  45. 45.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Corner Stone: yes, but in my experience, the golf ball will almost always come down in the water. At least that’s what happened today. I told my daughter that I was letting her win wince she came home from college for the weekend. Pretty sure she believed me.

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @GrandJury: Actually I know just how dangerous this is. I also know that freaking out won’t do anyone any good. But if you want to run around in a panic like a chicken with its head cut off, knock yourself out.

    ETA: I have a number of good friends and colleagues stationed in South Korea right now. I can’t do anything for them but keep good thoughts. And that’s what I intend to do.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    @Spanky: I haven’t really wanted to think about it too much, but doesn’t it seem a little odd he went down there early just to be alone? Are the scientists replacing all his fluids like the Tinman in Oz? Somebody taping his eyelids open and making him watch propaganda ala Clockwork Orange?
    I like being alone, also too, when I can. But I have a 12 year old son with me all the time so I think that’s pretty FUCKING UNDERSTANDABLE AFTER ALL.
    Oh, sorry about that.

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Spanky: KT McFarland is the senior National Security Staff staffer with him. Everyone else is reachable via a Secure Video Teleconference (SVTC pronounced sivits) from the SCIF they’ve set up at Mar a Lago. So if a full Interagency national security principals committee meeting needs to be called it can be.

  55. 55.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @GrandJury: A

    lso, NK has a 6million man military.

    Chill out, like China that’s because every adult is put threw some short military training military training that more political indoctrination.

    Worth keeping in mind the Gulf showed our military is very good and massacring these third world former Soviet client state armies. Of course that does nothing for damage done to South Korea and so on.

  56. 56.

    hovercraft

    @Baud:
    It’s Easter weekend, I’m being very, very generous, as far as I can tell two youngest haven’t proved that blood will out, so I won’t spit on them, yet, but I still don’t trust them. Given the family history they have to prove they aren’t scum, I’m sorry, but his blood seems to be extremely virulent.

  60. 60.

    Steve in the ATL

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m certain that someone hacked my swing today. OTOH, as I was strolling around the golf course, it occurred to me that I was performing the exact same presidential functions as trump, except that I will likely have a better dinner.

    ETA: and my wife loves me and will be in same bed, in the same city in the same state, with me tonight.

  62. 62.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Adam L Silverman: on top of the Westin, which you may remember as the hotel that lost a shit ton of windows when a tornado went through downtown Atlanta a couple of years back.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: Is this what you’re referring to?
    https://news.artnet.com/art-world/director-polish-culture-institute-berlin-fired-jewish-content-771281

    Director of Polish Culture Institute in Berlin Fired for ‘Too Much Jewish Content’
    Poland’s minister of culture has called for ending ‘the culture of shame.’
    Hili Perlson, December 5, 2016

    The cultural manager and director of the Polish culture institute in Berlin, Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska, was fired this past Tuesday from her position. According to the German left-leaning daily TAZ that broke the story, Poland’s right-wing PiS-led government called for her immediate departure due to her programming, which included “too much Jewish-themed content,” as Poland’s ambassador in Germany Andrzej Przyłębski had complained.

    The institute’s spokesperson, Marcin Zastrożny, confirmed to TAZ this past Friday that Wielga-Skolimowska, whose contract should have continued until summer 2017, has been dismissed “effective immediately.”

    Among other things, the Berlin institute screened the Academy-Award winning film Ida (2015), whose main protagonist finds out, in 1960s Poland, that she is Jewish, and that her biological parents had been murdered by their neighbors. However, Poland’s ambassador in Germany Przyłębski requested the screening of the propaganda film Smolensk instead.

    No film theater in Berlin would agree to screen Smolensk. The movie claims that the 2010 crash of the Polish presidential plane, which killed all 95 passengers, including then president Lech Kaczyński, was not an accident but rather Russian terrorism.

    Much more at the link.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    I checked the GOS comment section for the first time in a while and I can see there are still a lot of people there who suck (some good ones too).

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: I thought for a minute about pulling a Martin Riggs with pistol v helicopter in Lethal Weapon 2: Curse of the Leo but I figured if he couldn’t bring one down I may as well hang it up.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

  67. 67.

    hovercraft

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Do you think he can do more than watch ? There’s a reason he’s working so hard to show how tough he is. He’s compensating for something, yes he has tiny hands, but I think there’s more to it than that, what kind of man makes his mistress go out and tell the world it was the best sex ever? Somethings not right.
    Ugh, just thinking about this is gross.

  69. 69.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The movie claims that the 2010 crash of the Polish presidential plane, which killed all 95 passengers, including then president Lech Kaczyński, was not an accident but rather Russian terrorism.

    In light of recent events, this can’t be a controversial position any longer

  73. 73.

    hellslittlestangel

    So now it’s Trump’s turn to fuck something up even more humiliatingly. USA! USA! USA!

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: I just checked, that’s the one. He was five and apparently got up to look out the window, slipped, and got pinned between the rotating platform of the dining room and the wall/window.

    Though it is no longer a Marriott. It is now a Westin Hotel.

  76. 76.

    NotMax

    “Missile? I thought you ordered a fizzle!”

    DPRK programmers are highly skilled, both Bureau 121 and also the state of the cyber art training at Unyong. Little doubt they would recognize hacking/intrusion and pounce on it with alacrity.

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Wasn’t McFarland ousted earlier this month? Ah, here it is – to be foisted upon Singapore.

  80. 80.

    Barbara

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t think there will be an honest reckoning of what happened to Jews in Eastern Europe until no one within living memory is alive to contest their own or their parents’ role, and maybe not even then. It is to Poland (in particular) what slavery is to the United States. It’s just too shameful to admit it as an embedded trait of our national experience. They will seize on the possibility that Russia killed a few dozen Poles and blot out the reality that millions of Polish Jews perished with the complicity of many non-Jewish (read: Roman Catholic) Poles.

  83. 83.

    Arclite

    Airgapped networks, like DPRK’s nuclear facilities, can still be hacked. Here’s an example:

    A team of researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel has discovered a way to extract sensitive information from air-gapped computers – this time using radio frequency transmissions from USB connectors without any need of specialized hardware mounted on the USB.

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steve in the ATL: It isn’t. In fact Poland released information in the last few weeks they claim proves this.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-09/poland-searches-for-smolensk-truth-seven-years-after-jet-crash

    On the seventh anniversary of a plane crash that killed the Polish President at a remote Russian airfield, the country’s leader claimed an explosion probably led to the disaster.

    Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s most powerful politician whose twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, died in Smolensk in 2010, told Poles to brace for more “attacks” on the nation’s authorities as his colleagues in government neared “the truth” about how the plane crashed. His Law & Justice party has ignored separate investigations by Polish and Russian authorities that found that pilot error was mainly at fault in the disaster.

    Subject to conspiracy theories that blame the disaster on everything from missiles to fog machines, the tragedy remains a lightning rod in Polish politics, with implications beyond the NATO member’s borders. Party members including Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz have declared the crash was probably an “assassination.”

    “We know with a very high degree of certainty that there was an explosion, and this is not the end of our quest for the truth,” Kaczynski told an evening gathering near the Presidential palace in Warsaw. “The attacks on us stem from the fact are closer than ever to the truth, and we must stand ready for more resistance to the truth, and for more hatred.”

    More at the link, but the Poles are not amused. And rightly so.

  86. 86.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’d go no lighter than 454 Casull in a revolver with a 7 inch barrel if you do that.

    Jesus. I plan on masturbating again at some point in the near future. I figure letting that silk freak fly around isn’t worth giving that up.
    Live and let live, that’s what I always say.

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: She’s been designated as the Ambassador nominate to Singapore. She has to first clear the background checks and then clear Senate confirmation. Until then she’s riding a desk as the Deputy National Security Advisor despite being functionally replaced by Dinah Powell.

  89. 89.

    JPL

    @Corner Stone: For some reason, Mattis decided to release his own statement.
    I just can’t imagine why he wouldn’t trust the president or his staff to handle this. I think it means we can sleep tonight, but tomorrow brings new challenges.

  90. 90.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Barbara:

    I don’t think there will be an honest reckoning of what happened to Jews in Eastern Europe until no one within living memory is alive to contest their own or their parents’ role, and maybe not even then. It is to Poland (in particular) what slavery is to the United States. It’s just too shameful to admit it as an embedded trait of our national experience. They will seize on the possibility that Russia killed a few dozen Poles and blot out the reality that millions of Polish Jews perished with the complicity of many non-Jewish (read: Roman Catholic) Poles.

    I mentioned this a while back in a similar discussion, but my stepfather’s roommate at Yale was a man named Julian Kulski; his father was the mayor of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. They were Protestants but worked hard to save Jews. He wrote a book about it–“Dying, We Live”–powerful and depressing.

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Barbara: 70 years of Soviet propagandizing that the real victims of WW II weren’t Jews or Gypsies or homosexuals, but Russians and Slavs. Not that they didn’t suffer horribly both on and off the battlefield, including in the camps, but…

  93. 93.

    NotMax

    @Barbara

    Scene in the multi-hour documentary Shoah with a beefy middle aged Polish farmer railing against Jews and bragging to the camera crew and interviewer that he can unerringly “smell them” in order to point them out.

    The crew and interviewer were Jewish, a fact he missed entirely.

  98. 98.

    efgoldman

    @Barbara:

    millions of Polish Jews perished with the complicity of many non-Jewish (read: Roman Catholic) Poles.

    Poland, Ukraine, Hungary… the Germans had lots of willing help. That’s why I’ve always been ambivalent about feeling sorry for those poor oppressed countries under the Soviet/Russian boot.

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    TheTelegraph from early April:

    “Left-of-launch” strategies involve electromagnetic propagation or cyber attacks against missiles immediately after launch, including through infected electronics aboard the weapon that confuse its command and control or targeting systems.

    North Korea relies on sophisticated electronics for the internal controls of its weapons – all of which have to be imported, in violation of international sanctions.

    Part of the beauty of a “left-of-launch” attack, said Lance Gatling, a defence analyst and president of Tokyo-based Nexial Research Inc, is that the North Koreans cannot be sure that any imported electronics have not been deliberately permitted to evade sanctions because they are infected with malware. Similarly, when a launch fails they are also unable to determine what brought the missile down.

    “There are many things that can go wrong with a missile launch, but it would be impossible to tell from outside if something had affected the internal guidance or control systems”, Mr Gatling told The Telegraph.

    Mr Gatling referred to reports in the press of “left-of-launch” attacks targeting the North: “It has been openly mentioned that there is a possibility that the North’s supply chain for components has been deliberately infected, and they might never know.”

    “It is quite possible that parts that they are importing are intentionally faulty because, through history, there have been similar attempts to sabotage an enemy’s capabilities,” he said, citing Allied efforts during the Second World War to infiltrate agents into Nazi Germany’s programme to develop V2 rockets.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Arclite: I don’t know, but I think if we had shot it down, PACOM would have made a statement on that. Would be a good deterrent demonstration. Until we get better reporting it is more likely it blew up like all the previous attempts have. They clearly have an engineering problem they haven’t been able to solve yet.

  102. 102.

    lollipopguild

    @Barbara: Good luck with that. It’s been 152 years since the end of the Civil War in 1865 and we still have people who want to totally rewrite that war. It is never ending for some people.

  104. 104.

    efgoldman

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I said she’d be there; I didn’t say she’d be *happy* about it

    Given the week you had, she’s probably wondering who you are and what you’re doing in her house.

  106. 106.

    sharl

    This post reminds me just how little I know about the events leading up to the (official still ongoing) Korean War, beyond the most vague facts.

    Within the past few weeks there was a somewhat (self-)congratulatory tweet on how the forces of North Korea and China were held in check. I think it was from an official DoD account, but either they deleted it or my search skills aren’t up to snuff.

    The tweet caused a lot of outrage among some folks who know that war history. Several of those people uploaded a page image from Robert M. Neer’s book Napalm, quoting Congressional testimony from Gen. MacArthur as to the massive destruction of our bombing campaign, which was so jarring that it made MacArthur vomit.

    Contemplating alternative time lines is most fun while drunk or stoned I guess (unless you’re writing scifi or whatever). I’m in neither state, but I do wonder how things might have turned out otherwise without the massive devastation. Like I said, I don’t know much about it, but it had to be something awful to make MacArthur ralph.

  107. 107.

    debbie

    @Barbara:

    Doubtful. The Holocaust may have been the worst thing to happen to Jews, but horrible things have been happening to Jews in Eastern Europe since forever.

  108. 108.

    ByRookorbyCrook

    GrandJury seems to be a bit high on the trollish hyperbole this evening. I am not sure if clothing ourselves in sack cloth and ashes would be an appropriate enough response.
    North Korea is playing the same brinksmanship game it always does. It wants a response from us and especially an over the top response. They will keep pushing this envelope until they can get Trump to ‘deal’ with their sanctions again. It is dangerous and scary, but it is so outside the bounds of expected behavior, that is farcically funny too.

  109. 109.

    trollhattan

    My well-reasoned uneducated calculus:
    NK ICBMs remain gravely unreliable and of dubious accuracy.
    NK fission weapons are likely still too large to deliver by missile and also, too, still unreliable.
    For the time being, NK’s nuke delivery options are probably by aircraft or ship.
    Today’s parade supposedly premiered real/mocked-up sub missiles, a potential third delivery mode.

    As for 2017 I don’t think they have a reliable way to deliver a nuke attack.

  111. 111.

    Taylor

    @Adam L Silverman:

    “If it ever came to cyberwar between the US and North Korea, it would be an overwhelming victory for the West.”

    “North Korea can do a Sony attack or attack the White House, but that’s cause that’s the nature of cyberspace,” Geers said. “But if war came, you’d see Cyber Command wipe out most other countries’ pretty quickly.”

    After the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight reaction to Russian interference in the election last year, and more recently Russian hackersWikileaks releasing NSA/CIA rootkits, the very last thing I want to hear is any fucking smugness on the part of the US re cyberwar.

    The Director of the FBI sounds like a fucking moron when testifying to Congress about crypto, while the NSA has weakened our cyber defenses with their back doors in the infrastructure.

  113. 113.

    NotMax

    Reminder for any so inclined that at 2 a.m. Eastern time TCM is showing the SF tale Death Watch (not to be confused with a totally different film, Deathwatch). Harvey Keitel and Romy Schneider star..

    In English, helmed by French director Bertrand Tavernier and filmed entirely in Scotland, it is a way ahead of its time look at reality TV. Also some arresting camera work showcasing Glasgow and its environs.

  116. 116.

    Suzanne

    Since it’s an open thread, I’m going to do something I never do, and that is link to a GoFundMe page. This dude is a friend of mine from high school. He’s a veteran, raising his son without any help from his son’s mother, and he’s a hardworking guy who has fallen on some hard times. His mom is also on disability, and cannot help them. He’s trying to avoid being evicted and losing his car. He’s also vehemently anti-Dampnut. I would consider it a personal favor if you could help him out. Thanks, all.

  119. 119.

    Arclite

    @NotMax: Not true at all. Stuxnet was in the wild for the entire world to discover, and it took years before one of the top security experts in the world figured it out, and then it took months of constant effort to figure out what it was and what it did. Also, a lot of these systems are not typical computer networks, they’re running proprietary languages like JCL on proprietary systems designed for industrial work. So A) they aren’t typical targets and B) there aren’t a lot of IDS (intrusion detection) tools out there for them and C) because they’re rare, unique, and air gapped, there’s a general assumption that they are safe.

  122. 122.

    ??‍? Martin

    @Baud: The way we went after Irans nuclear program was to produce USB drives that we’d either get in the hands of Iranian workers when out of the country or disburse in the country, possibly through a 3rd party. More than a few hacks have been accomplished by leaving ‘lost’ drives around for people to pick up. The trojan on the drive would infect their personal PC and/or phone and spread to other connected devices, including other USB drives. The idea is that eventually it’ll find its way onto a device that gets connected to the airgapped system, where it’ll then work its way onto the industrial equipment.

    It sounds absurd, and it’s hella complicated to get it to propagate across disparate systems, yet we’ve apparently done it more than once.

  126. 126.

    germy

    Some nasty stuff happened in Berkeley. Very discouraging to see people getting punched in the face and knocked down. Disturbing footage all over twitter and youtube.

  127. 127.

    Arclite

    @NotMax:

    Initial reports are that it exploded at launch or very shortly afterward, so an unlikely supposition.

    Thanks.

  130. 130.

    efgoldman

    @germy:

    Some nasty stuff happened in Berkeley.

    What? Today?
    What was the precipitating event? (Last time it was Milo).

  132. 132.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t understand it either. I should just go and sleep now, that’s the cold medication talking. It should have read

    And isn’t Villager Anne Applebaum’s husband somewhat of wingnut and a part of the Polish government. I remember he had penned some screed against Obama, back when O was president.

  133. 133.

    germy

    @efgoldman:

    BERKELEY, Calif. — About 200 pro-Trump demonstrators and counterprotesters faced off Saturday morning at a “Patriots Day” rally in Berkeley, where the two groups have violently clashed on city streets twice in the past three months.

    About 10 a.m., dozens of counterprotesters wearing masks tore down plastic netting that separated the two groups in Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. The Trump supporters moved forward with American flags and chants against “communists.”

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-supporters-and-counter-protesters-face-off-at-berkeley-rally/

  134. 134.

    opiejeanne

    @Corner Stone: I first saw those motorized parasails on the road from San Diego to Yuma, out where those sand dunes are. That was a few years ago. The whole campground made us think of Road Warrior movies, and then one of those appeared over one of the dunes.

  135. 135.

    jl

    @NotMax: They can have all the instruction they want, there is no fool proof method or schooling or instruction or algorithm or toolkit that can detect computer malware before it decides to mal its ware. Then, often, it is too late.

    Whether or not cyber sabotage was responsible for the NK failure today, it will be a permanent fixture of the world cyberscape, just as internet malware will be.

  136. 136.

    efgoldman

    @germy:

    About 200 pro-Trump demonstrators and counterprotesters faced off Saturday morning at a “Patriots Day” rally in Berkeley

    So many assholes, so little time

  137. 137.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories are claiming success with the first in a new series of test flights involving an upgraded version of a nuclear bomb that has been part of the U.S. arsenal for decades.

    Work on the B61-12 has been ongoing for years, and government officials say the latest tests using mock versions of the bomb will be vital to the refurbishing effort.
    [snip]
    The B61-12 consolidates and replaces four older versions in the nation’s nuclear arsenal. It’s outfitted with a new tail-kit assembly and other hardware.
    [snip]
    In Nevada, it took two passes before the pilot could drop the mock B61-12. A herd of wild horses had to be chased away on the first go-around. Source

  140. 140.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: A group of pro-Trump supporters decided to show up and recreate what happened after the last event around Milo at the tax day stuff.

  141. 141.

    jl

    @efgoldman:

    ” What was the precipitating event? ”

    Yahoos from around Northern California who like to mix it up who had time on their hands.
    This is kind of a sport in the East Bay. Assholes on both sides drive in from all around to get in on the action.
    They brag about it in local media interview, from behind their dumbass masks.

  142. 142.

    Sab

    @GrandJury: My dad is a Korean War vet.He is 92 with mild dementia. He wasn’t in combat, he was medical, but 50 percent of the combat troops in his unit didn’t make it home. I never thought I would say this but I am so grateful for Fox News ignoring this. Every time Dad turns to CNN he freaks out. Also, my mother’s first cousin survived WWII. He got Alzeimers. He spent the last five years of his life re-living the Battle of the Bulge.

    I am very happy when news outlets and blogs don’t get nuts about impending disasters. I share your concern, but I don’t want my loved ones to go nuts before they need to. But I do share your concern.

    wa

  144. 144.

    NotMax

    Still vitally engaged, still at the forefront, and only 19.

    Education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai says the people of Pakistan need to do some serious soul-searching in the wake of the recent slaying of a university student who was beaten to death for professing progressive views about Islam.

    Mashal Khan, 23, was lynched by an angry mob after a heated debate about religion spilled out of a dorm and out into the open. According to Reuters, witnesses claimed police hesitated to save Khan, and an imam at the local mosque refused to read the last rites at his funeral.

    “This was not just the funeral of Mashal Khan, but a funeral for the message of our religion, which is peace and tolerance,” said Yousafzai, 19, in an Urdu video message broadcast on Pakistani news outlet Geo News.

    “We have forgotten our values and are not representing our religion,” she continued, adding that the incident “has brought disgrace to our country.” Source

  148. 148.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: He’s the former Polish foreign minister. Now he’s got some sort of position at Harvard. And there have been a few controversies.
    http://time.com/2909289/poland-foreign-minister-worthless/

    This seems to be the one you’re referring to though:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/3473953/Poland-denies-Barack-Obama-cannibal-joke.html

    In an episode that could potentially strain relations between Warsaw and Washington, Radek Sikorski, an Oxford-educated politician who has lived in the US, was reported to have made the jibe by an opposition politician, Ryszard Czarnecki.
    Writing in his blog, Mr Czarnecki, an MEP, quoted the foreign minister as saying: “Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary.”
    A spokesman for the Polish foreign office conceded that Mr Sikorski had made the controversial comment, but denied that the foreign minister had intended to insult Mr Obama, whose father was Kenyan.
    “Mr Sikorski did not tell a racist joke,” said Piotr Paszkowski, the spokesman. “He was only giving an example of the unpalatable and racist ‘jokes’ that surround President Elect Obama.”
    Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, has made no comment on the affair. It appears that Mr Sikorski’s position is not under threat despite calls from opposition politicians for an investigation to deter if the foreign minister broke anti-racism laws.

  150. 150.

    efgoldman

    @jl:

    Yahoos from around Northern California who like to mix it up who had time on their hands.

    No cops in Berkeley? No staties?
    I don’t imagine these things are much of a secret.
    Of course, the best way to handle the RWNJs, as they handled the Nazis in Skokie years ago, is to ignore them. They HATE that shit.

  152. 152.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: The problem is they’re looking for an excuse, or perhaps permission, to escalate.
    https://washingtonspectator.org/trump-guns-extremism-perlstein/

    A friend writes, “For basically the past six months or so I’ve been trying to tell my lefty friends in so many words, ‘Hey, there are a bunch of people on the Internet who are waiting for someone to tell them it’s okay to start shooting at you.’” He became concerned when a thread at the non-political firearms-enthusiasts website he regularly follows became filled with comments in all caps referring to liberals as enemies who must be shot. Developments both online and off following Donald Trump’s election have caused me to share his concern.

    In December, an author at the biggest and most explicitly non-political gun site, the Firearms Blog (its tagline is “Firearms, not politics”), recounted his experience with an outfit that offers tactical training based on the methods of the Israel Defense Forces. The moderator soon had to begin deleting comments. One that remains protested, “as if through the millennia, hundreds of nations, principalities and city-states reached the same conclusions,” and urged the curious to check out Judaism.is/genocide.html where one can watch the film Jewish Ritual Murder Revisited: The Hidden Cult.

    Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, a community member on a moderate firearms law site, PAGunBlog, a civil redoubt welcoming “active participation by both firearms enthusiasts and people who hate them,” described his shock from that morning’s web-surf when “a long-time commenter who I recognized as right-leaning but mostly moderate commented that ‘The Jews own and control everything in America…’ Not many months ago no one except a flaming neo-Nazi would have dreamed of expressing such an opinion, but today it seems to have become an acceptable element of our discourse. I noticed that no one replied to or castigated the comment.”

    Then came February 1 in Berkeley and things really started getting scary.

    The saga of what happened when Milo Yiannopoulos came to speak at the flagship campus of the University of California has since become foundational, not just with the alt-right but with quite nearly the entire right. Alt-right provocateur Yiannopoulos was turned back by violent protests, which culminated in the burning of a portable generator. Stuffed down the wingnut memory hole are the events that preceded the mêlée. The violence was, in fact, preceded by peaceful protests by approximately 1,500 Berkeley students, until they were waylaid by a tiny handful of off-campus “Black Bloc” and “antifa,” or anti-fascist, cadres who believe racist speech licenses violent resistance. It was also preceded, less than two weeks earlier, by the shooting of a Milo protester in Seattle, by a gunman who has yet to be charged with any crime.

    The Battle of Berkeley accelerated the construction of a body of mythology: the left has escalated its resistance to Trump into literal war, so Trump supporters must be prepared to resort to violence to oppose it.

    Much more at the link. And I read the firearms sites and blogs. Including the comments. This has been building for a while, including on the most read/accessed firearms site in the world. It is owned and run by the son of Holocaust survivors and at least half his front pagers are Jewish Americans. And the comments often quickly devolve into stormfront territory. They also think the nut from Janesville with the anti-government manifesto is a Progressive extremist terrorist. Even though his stated beliefs, on social media and in his manifesto, places him on the extreme right.

  154. 154.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Cannibal goes to the witch doctor complaining of stomach pains.

    “What have you been eating recently?”

    “We cooked a missionary.”

    “”And how did you cook him?”

    “The usual way, boiled him in the big pot.”

    “Hm, I see. What he he wearing?

    “Some kind of brown robe, with a rope tied around his waste.”

    “Aha! That explains your problem. That was a friar.”

  157. 157.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: I’m aware. Unfortunately I think the performers on one side have adjusted their outlook and are looking for an excuse/permission to escalate to deadly force. And I think there are a significant minority of other Americans that will see this, sympathize and agree with how that side of this performance art characterize these events, and will be also looking for the same excuse/permission to escalate to deadly force.

  164. 164.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    This has been building for a while, including on the most read/accessed firearms site in the world.

    I skimmed it earler today at the LG&M link.
    I know Perlstein is not an alarmist or a conspiracy nut, but I wonder how many of these kkklowns are just kkkeyboard kkkomandos.

  172. 172.

    germy

    Isn’t “Steal His Look” and “Kill Anyone Who Looks Like Him” a recipe for some horrible misunderstandings?

  173. 173.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: What can I say? I apologize for our Northern California yahoos. Can’t have a demonstration about anything over there without certain people using it as an excuse to mix it up and destroy property. The local news had a report about all the stuff the police confiscated this morning from people coming in the to demonstration site, like baseball bats wrapped with barbed wire or full of spikes.

    And like I said, local interviews with young dudes (almost always young dudes) joyfully bragging that they show up to any and all events to wreck stuff up and mix it up with police or demonstrators on the other side. Many are local Bay Area people,and many drive in from Central Valley or other areas since no chance to get in on a show like that out in the sticks. Here they can act out in a great drama, back in Stockton of Vallejo, they’d just be a small lonely bunch of losers sitting on the curb under the watchful eyes of the local cops waiting for paddy wagon.

    It is a local problem, and if you are right, one that may have national dimensions now.

  178. 178.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl:

    It is a local problem, and if you are right, one that may have national dimensions now.

    You are absolutely correct, Trump’s election gave them a national ‘permission slip’. You can see it with the AirBnB situation with the Asian woman here in SoCal.

  179. 179.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: When you start seeing the known alt-right guys, like Baked Alaska, involved in the organizing, you know it isn’t the usual thing you’re describing. He was involved arranging the same type of stuff – having people show up dressed like antifa – to cause trouble at a BLM protest a while back. These folks don’t seem to realize that they’re not hiding in plain sight with their social media use. They’re just in plain sight.

    The Stick Man guy described here managed to beat some protestor up a month or so ago and then get the protestor arrested. He then took to social media to brag about it and try to sell gear based on his actions:

  180. 180.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes, Of course. Why not? One thing these people are serious about is causing trouble. I saw interviews with anarchists who bragged about smashing windows and starting fires at the protests over the Oscar Grant shooting. They didn’t give a shit about a protest, they wanted to burn the system down and this was an excuse. Doesn’t surprise me at all that some of the people today are weirdo alt-right Trump supporters who want to do something like a false flag operation.

  182. 182.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman: Adam, totally off topic, but are you paying any attention to what’s going on in Chicago?
    Blackhawks outscored 6-0 in almost six periods of hockey – AT HOME!
    Next two are in Nashville.

  184. 184.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: It is complicated and multifaceted. Do I think this one time he should’ve done more? Sure. Do I have any idea if it would have actually helped? Unless they were ready to arrest people, all he would’ve done was inserted the IC, which has been far too publicly politicized since Wikileaks and Snowden, fully into the election, as well as given the GOP a huge victim card to play for months up to the election. And should it have actually been effective and HRC won, they’d have kept playing that card. This is what McConnell telegraphed he would do. I’m not sure there were any good answers or course of action or responses. Each had significantly high levels of risk in relation to the possible rewards. And since none of us have actually seen the actual Intel, it is far too easy to point fingers at this point. More should have been done. That’s obvious. But how or what? That’s the hard part. It always is.

  186. 186.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:

    These folks don’t seem to realize that they’re not hiding in plain sight with their social media use. They’re just in plain sight.

    They are in plain sight to us, but to most people who watch the evening news, all they’ll hear is that the ant Twitler, anti-tax protesters were violent. Remember DFH’s deserve whatever happens to them, and whatever the message is supposed to be, gets drowned out by reports of violence. How many people out there still believe PP was selling baby parts?

  187. 187.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: You follow this stuff more than I do, and you might be right. But there are violent anarchist groups around here who have been doing similar planning for a few years. I don’t know where the anarchists would fall on the Trump/anit-Trump divide, or if they even care as long as they can hurt someone or something. Being anarchists, they maybe are less capable of sustained organization.

    I do agree that if this keeps up, it could easily turn into a serious problem around here, with a lot of people getting hurt, and clampdown on lawful protests that are dangerous to hold, even if they are needed.

  188. 188.

    efgoldman

    @NotMax:

    Incitement to violence is still a chargeable offense, yes?

    The assholes will no doubt complain that their free speech right is being violated.

    Fuckem

  190. 190.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I am, to my dismay. I am not happy right now. Give Nashville credit, they’re bringing it and not wearing those awful mustard colored jerseys, but I’m not happy.

  191. 191.

    magurakurin

    @GrandJury: boring.

    Putin isn’t getting his money’s worth with this quality of trolling.

    And that is what it is. This has been proven now without a shadow of a doubt.

    so, fuck off, comrade.

  196. 196.

    Steve in the ATL

    @efgoldman:

    The assholes will no doubt complain that their free speech right is being violated.

    Fuckem

    Fuckem indeed. It’s not an absolute right; there are limitations. Unlike, of course, the second amendment, which shall never be infringed in any way by any goddamned dirty hippies.

  197. 197.

    Adam L Silverman

    @GrandJury: You’ve made an extraordinary truth claim, can you provide the extraordinary evidence?

    The simple answer is you cannot.

  198. 198.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Some of he violent anarchists around here ID themselves with the Black Bloc. And they’ve gotten attention from national media.

    What is a Black Bloc? The tactic that unleashed chaos in Berkeley
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/02/02/what-black-bloc/97393870/

    But local media says there are smaller local groups who consider it sissy and BS and very unanarchist to ID with any kind of movement.
    I wonder if the alt-right provocateurs will get the same attention that the Black Bloc has?

  199. 199.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: It will take work to separate out the traditional black bloc knuckleheads you’re used to seeing with these alt-right folks who have decided to dress like them so as to allow them to not just engage in violence, but also have it blamed on the black bloc folks who are largely perceived as being on the extreme left. This allows them to bust heads and to tar left of center peaceful protestors at the same time.

  201. 201.

    Steve in the ATL

    @germy:

    I don’t understand Canadian libertarians. They don’t like their healthcare system? What is she fighting for?

    I don’t understand ANY libertarians. Are they not aware of the real world? Of human nature? Thirteen year old kids who are selfish–I can let that pass. But adults? Especially intelligent, educated ones? Grow the fuck up.

  202. 202.

    Bill Arnold

    @Another Scott:

    … the North Koreans cannot be sure that any imported electronics have not been deliberately permitted to evade sanctions because they are infected with malware. Similarly, when a launch fails they are also unable to determine what brought the missile down.

    Just the possibility of adversarial enhancement of Murphy’s Law can be a real morale problem. Can’t imagine being a nuclear weapons scientist/engineer working in the DPRK – one imagines that the implied threats to self and family in the event of failure are terrible, and the threat of possibly being punished for failures due to enhanced bad luck (or worse, for suspected sabotage) would make it worse. Could be wrong; does anyone know how failure during weapons development/tests is dealt with in the DPRK?
    Anyway, happy short term to see a (reported) failure but Kim Jong-un handles embarrassment about as well as D. Trump.
    Out of curiosity mainly, what time was the launch attempt? Around 5:21 Eastern time?

  208. 208.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s a soft way of saying, “meh”. It’s not going to fly. Five Eyes in fucking 2015 is reported to have said, “Watch out. Something’s not right here.”
    I agree we haven’t seen the intel but that seems like a cop out in the extreme. We had someone who balanced their potential legacy against the defense of our democratic system and came up on the side of not wanting to step into it. I am truly sorry for anyone who doesn’t want to see that (not saying you) but it is unmistakable at this point. And it is not going to get any better.

  210. 210.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: I may be cynical, but there might be a corporate media reluctance to look too deeply into alt-right Trump sympathizers when it is safer to blame the supposedly far left Black Bloc people.

    But is also a big mistake to ID the anarchists (Black Bloc people, or the smaller independent local outfits) with any kind of organized political left. Everyone hates them here. They just want to cause trouble. They have no interest in redress of grievances or fixing any problem. Local White and minority business owners hate them. Local civil rights groups hate them. The B*****bros hate them.

    Problem is, that probably won’t stop some easy, and ignorant and brain dead, corporate media narrative to drive national public perception if things keep getting worse. I guess the best hope is that there are not enough of them to cause real trouble and a critical mass of organizers will be rounded up eventually.

  213. 213.

    jl

    @Major Major Major Major: That is true. One of them always manages to give an interview so fucking weird and goofily toxic it merits a few seconds on the local media after a mini-riot.. And you see them with their black masks and Guy Fawkes masks goofing around in the background of news spots or trying to wreck in interview with eye witnesses to some incident.

  214. 214.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: I hear what you’re saying and I’m not disagreeing with you. There are a lot of times that I wish President Obama had been more overt and forceful regardless of the politics. This was one of them. But the Intel is a consideration. Depending on the sources and methods there are people who’s lives could be endangered. I will say that President Obama too often counted on the American people and America’s institutions to be mature, reasonable, and do the right thing.

  215. 215.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: The media narrative has been long established. It will make countering it very, very difficult regardless of the reality.

  216. 216.

    jl

    @Kropadope: Was this commenter super serious when s/he suggested that a war on the Korean Peninsula would be a great thing in the good cause of bringing down Trump? That was frivolous, stupid and toxic. Ignore the troll.

  220. 220.

    Kropadope

    @jl:

    Was this commenter super serious when s/he suggested that a war on the Korean Peninsula would be a great thing in the good cause of bringing down Trump?

    I certainly hope so, I don’t want to think of him/her as being hypocritical in addition to being a stick in the mud.

  230. 230.

    Kropadope

    @Major Major Major Major:

    the pollster aggregate shows him ticking upwards since April 1, for whatever reason:

    This particular floor hasn’t given way yet, perhaps? There’s probably a pretty solid floor somewhere just north of a quarter.

  231. 231.

    NotMax

    @jl

    Don’t mind the second one so much, but a traditionally made (using schmaltz, of course) matzo ball is … perfect.

    Adornment or garnish is gilding the lily.

  237. 237.

    Adam L Silverman

    New post and open thread up. I figured I’d elevate the Berkley beat down meshugas into its own post.

  239. 239.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: Someone may not be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. As for the bacon wrapped matzoh balls, I saw those on some food show a month or so back.

  242. 242.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    It was a two parter. They get to complain and they get the attention that they think they are due. Actual adults know that complaining gets you shit and they don’t need attention because they are secure individuals.

    Damn I crack myself up.

  245. 245.

    joel hanes

    @efgoldman:

    sketch of a joke:
    ancient jewish man finds magic lamp
    GENIE: I am the genie! You may have theee wishes.
    What is your first wish ?
    AJM: For my first wish, I wish that Genghis Khan and all his hordes should be re-born, should sweep from Mongolia across eastern Asia, through central Europe, only to break like a wave at the Rhine, and retreat all the way back to Mongolia.
    GENIE: It shall be so. What is your second wish ?
    AJM: For my second wish, I wish that Genghis Khan and all his hordes should be re-born AGAIN, [remainder same as first wish ]
    GENIE: It shall be done. Twice, it seems. What is your third wish ?
    AJM: For my third wish, I wish that Genghis Khan and all his …
    GENIE: [breaking in] OK, I get it. Three times. It shall be done, three times.
    But would you mind telling me why three identical wishes ?
    AJM: Aha! He must march six times through Russia and Poland.

  246. 246.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Well there is the part that actual adults also know that just about the time that you trip over a mismatch in the sidewalk, life will come along and kick you in the crotch full force while you are falling down. IOW life happens and complaining about shit that you can’t do anything about because it hurts your fee fees or your warped sense of stupid, also known as being fucking selfish, is a waste of time. Everyone, who at some point before they die, wakes up and realizes that life sucks for everyone, just not in equal proportions, and wants to work to lesson that suckage regardless of the equality of proportions, has just become an actual adult. Now some learn this while still in single digits, some take decades and many will die of old age without ever having this knowledge. Those in that last group are libertarians and conservatives.

  247. 247.

    Bill Arnold

    @Taylor:

    …while the NSA has weakened our cyber defenses with their back doors in the infrastructure.

    This is where the recent Shadow Brokers mega-dump gets weird. Fingers are pointed firmly at Russia as the actor (e.g. the grugq(and read first two parts of that piece first) and recent tweets suggest he still believes this) but the apparent fact is that a large trove of useful assets (zero days etc) were burned; they could have been added to arsenals for espionage/sabotage by state actors or used for profitable criminal activity directly or indirectly. And the net effect of the release was/will be to increase security by forcing a rapid wave of fixes, a good thing, though in the short term vulnerability increases and attribution for attacks becomes more difficult. (Been seriously wondering about this for many months, but the recent dump made it more interesting.)

  250. 250.

    Groucho48

    @sharl:

    I’d recommend David Halberstam’s The Coldest War

    href=”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3558580/Review-The-Coldest-Winter-America-and-the-Korean-War-by-David-Halberstam.html”>

    Very complex, but, basically, the right was desperate to get back in power as they saw the New Deal as a game changer. They had their hopes set on beating Truman, but, that didn’t work out. Casting around for something, anything, they went with the old tried and true fear mongering ploy. We lost China and Truman was responsible. Nonsense, of course, but, much of the media was as rabidly right as Fox is today, so, it got traction.

    Meanwhile the Administration released a position paper that implied we didn’t consider Korea to be in our sphere of influence. This piqued the NK leadership, who wanted to do something to take Korean minds off the dreadful state of the economy. Something like retaking SK. So, they contacted China to see if China would be amenable, or, even better, helpful. China was interested, especially as they were frothing at our assistance in setting up Chiang Kai Shek in Taiwan. China approached Russia and Stalin told them to go for it. When asked if Russia could supply material, he said sure, but, had his fingers crossed. So, China told NK to go for it.

    Meanwhile, MacArthur, in charge of the area, was based in Japan and pretty much stripped the best in men and equipment for his local command. When rumors came out of the NK plans, MacArthur claimed the NK were no threat at all, that China would never jump in and Korea didn’t need any additional forces or equipment.

    Then, NK struck and made rapid progress. Very rapid progress. MacArthur’s song almost instantly changed and he started blaming the Truman Administration for not supplying more stuff for Korea. The right wing noise machine began ramping up about Truman losing both China and Korea. WW2 vets were called up and shopped out. Equipment was sent.

    We were able to stabilize our lines in Pusan, in deep South Korea. Lots of stuff happens, covered in the book. We start pushing back, slowly, then fairly rapidly. MacArthur brings off Inchon (he was a despicable person but was a brilliant military mind.) As we started pushing north, Truman kept telling MacArthur not to get too close to China. MacArthur ignored him, claiming the Chinese wouldn’t enter the war, and, even if they did, they wouldn’t have any effect on the war. Well, he did go too far north and China did enter and started pushing us back, and back. MacArthur instantly claimed that we needed to use nukes to deal with the overpowering and fanatical Chinese armies and that Truman was tying his hands by denying their use.

    More stuff happens, and the lines end up back right where they were.

  251. 251.

    Groucho48

    @sharl:

    I’d recommend David Halberstam’s The Coldest War

    href=”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3558580/Review-The-Coldest-Winter-America-and-the-Korean-War-by-David-Halberstam.html”>

    Very complex, but, basically, the right was desperate to get back in power as they saw the New Deal as a game changer. They had their hopes set on beating Truman, but, that didn’t work out. Casting around for something, anything, they went with the old tried and true fear mongering ploy. We lost China and Truman was responsible. Nonsense, of course, but, much of the media was as rabidly right as Fox is today, so, it got traction.

    Meanwhile the Administration released a position paper that implied we didn’t consider Korea to be in our sphere of influence. This piqued the NK leadership, who wanted to do something to take Korean minds off the dreadful state of the economy. Something like retaking SK. So, they contacted China to see if China would be amenable, or, even better, helpful. China was interested, especially as they were frothing at our assistance in setting up Chiang Kai Shek in Taiwan. China approached Russia and Stalin told them to go for it. When asked if Russia could supply material, he said sure, but, had his fingers crossed. So, China told NK to go for it.

    Meanwhile, MacArthur, in charge of the area, was based in Japan and pretty much stripped the best in men and equipment for his local command. When rumors came out of the NK plans, MacArthur claimed the NK were no threat at all, that China would never jump in and Korea didn’t need any additional forces or equipment.

    Then, NK struck and made rapid progress. Very rapid progress. MacArthur’s song almost instantly changed and he started blaming the Truman Administration for not supplying more stuff for Korea. The right wing noise machine began ramping up about Truman losing both China and Korea. WW2 vets were called up and shopped out. Equipment was sent.

    We were able to stabilize our lines in Pusan, in deep South Korea. Lots of stuff happens, covered in the book. We start pushing back, slowly, then fairly rapidly. MacArthur brings off Inchon (he was a despicable person but was a brilliant military mind.) As we started pushing north, Truman kept telling MacArthur not to get too close to China. MacArthur ignored him, claiming the Chinese wouldn’t enter the war, and, even if they did, they wouldn’t have any effect on the war. Well, he did go too far north and China did enter and started pushing us back, and back. MacArthur instantly claimed that we needed to use nukes to deal with the overpowering and fanatical Chinese armies and that Truman was tying his hands by denying their use.

    More stuff happens, and the lines end up back right where they were.

  254. 254.

    different-church-lady

    North Korea launches a failed missile in defiance of Trump, and the world is waiting to see how Trump will escalate it further.

    Trump plans to escalate his failed presidency.

  255. 255.

    Suzanne

    @joel hanes: You’re good people. Thank you.

    Brad has been a good friend for many years and I know that he has a lot of pride. Things have to be pretty dire before he’d ask for help.

  258. 258.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Adam L Silverman: Is there any real difference? As the joke goes the difference between an archaist and a libertarian is $40,000 a year. I notice our old friends from the Bundy’s the Oath Keepers popped up so I sense Westborogh Baptist style grifing.

  260. 260.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @germy: Any digital diarrhea from “blomi” makes me want to respond with a line that I was once told (never saw the flick) was delivered by Doris the prostitute (Barbra Streisand) to a carful of cruising johns in The Owl & The Pussycat (1970):

    Would you please be so kind as to kindly fuck off!?!?!

  261. 261.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jl:

    I may be cynical, but there might be a corporate media reluctance to look too deeply into alt-right Trump sympathizers when it is safer to blame the supposedly far left Black Bloc people.

    But is also a big mistake to ID the anarchists (Black Bloc people, or the smaller independent local outfits) with any kind of organized political left. Everyone hates them here. They just want to cause trouble. They have no interest in redress of grievances or fixing any problem. Local White and minority business owners hate them. Local civil rights groups hate them. The B*****bros hate them.

    That’s the thing – when you get down it they are just two gangs just looking to bully people. The Black Block is the name they got tagged with and the Media doesn’t do nuance.

  262. 262.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Adam L Silverman: More like tribal markers. From talking to hard righters they are just after reasons to attack other people and claim they are victims. I mean you don’t wander into a break room full of military vets who consider themselves conservatives and start screaming at them how they are all just socialist and liberals unless you want a fight.

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