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Should this thread become the new European Politics thread?

Yes, we need one anyway.
- 17 (21.8%)
No, we should take that elsewhere and keep this thread as-is.
- 27 (34.6%)
I don't care, let's see what happens.
- 34 (43.6%)

Total Members Voted: 75


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Author Topic: The Paris Attacks  (Read 59257 times)

Morrigi

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #255 on: November 15, 2015, 10:42:17 pm »

breitbart isn't a source. The Guardian is.

breitbart is basically a snazzier version of Stormfront mixed with mega corporation fanboys.

I'd have more faith in The Daily Mail as a source than Breitbart on basically any issue. For example, daily mail has cited information on both sides of the climate debate, whereas Breitbart is basically a mouthpiece for pollution-spewing megacorps who deny any climate effects. When you have a site which makes The Daily Mail look balanced and well researched, you know you're looking at a literal pile of turds.
Both are still a damn sight better than Salon and Jezebel, but that bar is so low you couldn't fit a mouse under it. Also, Breitbart Tech really isn't that bad. Biased, yes, but very rarely factually incorrect.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2015, 10:44:23 pm by Morrigi »
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Sheb

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #256 on: November 16, 2015, 12:45:05 am »

Re: tag, they would allow to track if those people are regularly meeting in some points or stuff. Also to check they don't cross borders for those that have restraining orders.

Sure, it wouldn't be a panacea, but it would make the job of those agencies watching suspects much easier, at the cost of a large violation of their privacy, and make for a nice soundbite.
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Reelya

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #257 on: November 16, 2015, 01:36:14 am »

Both are still a damn sight better than Salon and Jezebel, but that bar is so low you couldn't fit a mouse under it. Also, Breitbart Tech really isn't that bad. Biased, yes, but very rarely factually incorrect.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/
"Media Fooled by Deplorable, Awful, Absolutely Not Funny Trolling of Gamergate Critic Jubbal"

Is the current headline on Breitbart Tech. I was about to give them a pass based on the "Breitbart doesn't care about tech so they just reprint other stories" but Breitbart Tech is as fucking retarded as everything else on Breitbart. Breitbart Tech is a retarded politicized purile load of shit. Let's look at the rest of their Breitbart Tech headlines:

"ISIS Releases Line of Beheading Emojis for Social Media Fans"
"Reddit Moderators Censor Video on Censorship"
"Cal Electric Vehicle Charging Station Network Imploding"
"ESport Investor’s Offices Raided by Police"
"‘League of Legends’ Playerbase Used As Guinea Pigs"
"‘Fallout 4′ Release Hits PornHub Traffic"

There's not one single useful or interesting story there, and there's outright conspiracy theory clickbait headlines about League of Legends.

Look, I'm not buying that right-wing sites like Breitbart have even one redeeming feature, because nobody can demonstrate to me that they do.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 01:42:00 am by Reelya »
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Morrigi

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #258 on: November 16, 2015, 01:41:30 am »

Both are still a damn sight better than Salon and Jezebel, but that bar is so low you couldn't fit a mouse under it. Also, Breitbart Tech really isn't that bad. Biased, yes, but very rarely factually incorrect.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/
"Media Fooled by Deplorable, Awful, Absolutely Not Funny Trolling of Gamergate Critic Jubbal"

Is the current headline on Breitbart Tech. I was about to give them a pass based on the "Breitbart doesn't care about tech so they just reprint other stories" but Breitbart Tech is as fucking retarded as everything else on Breitbart. Breitbart Tech is a retarded politicized purile load of shit. Let's look at the rest of their Breitbart Tech headlines:

"ISIS Releases Line of Beheading Emojis for Social Media Fans"
"Reddit Moderators Censor Video on Censorship"
"Cal Electric Vehicle Charging Station Network Imploding"
"ESport Investor’s Offices Raided by Police"
"‘League of Legends’ Playerbase Used As Guinea Pigs"
"‘Fallout 4′ Release Hits PornHub Traffic"

There's not one single useful or interesting story there, and there's outright conspiracy theory clickbait headlines about League of Legends.
The League of Legends thing is not a conspiracy theory at all, players were sent psychological tests for no apparent reason and accusing the developer of using players as guinea pigs because of it is not unreasonable. Then again, this is completely off-topic.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 01:43:50 am by Morrigi »
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Reelya

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #259 on: November 16, 2015, 01:43:04 am »

The headline is pure clickbait. Just don't link Breitbart or defend them, it makes you look silly. It's just that simple and not a subject of debate. It's like telling us you read something on Stormfront.

Starver

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #260 on: November 16, 2015, 01:43:42 am »

Uh, electronic surveillace bracelet are already widely used for prisoners on parole, it's not exactly a new technology.
Seems an odd option for such potentially serious criminals. The only thing preventing someone removing a tag is the potential penalty if caught (and it doesn't stop them reliably). If you were removing it for an attack why care? At most you'd have to take care not to alert the officials you'd been tampering with it.
From what little I know of Electronic Tagging (their use/abuse/misuse/non-use in the UK, specifically), the item is attached with a (theoretically) tamper-proof strap, with regular inspections to ensure there's no undue wear (accidental or on purpose) to it.  At its most passive a strap damaged enough to permit removal stops the tag acting as the safeguard (e.g. checking in with the 'home station' at a certain time(/times) each day to indicate proximity to the curfew household, lest the lack of such a check-in mobilise the authorities to seek the tag-wearer out, or at least send out a repairperson/parole-checker to deal with whatever fault is discovered from the initial call to their home as a first action).

More actively, I've no doubt that there are also versions these days (beyond mere "keep your mind on the curfew" reminders of petty, but annoying, criminals) that have SIM cards in tags that alert to a tamper (or fail to ping that all is normal), to disbenefit the higher-risk criminal, and it's only minor step from that to have a GPS chip to "ping location", on top of that, with the possibility of automatic 'geofencing' of the wearer (in or out of areas... according to need, and probably also with agreed schedules and excursions and other exceptions, upon request).


The big problem with tags is the back-office handling, especially if issuing them en-mass to a broad group of people.  Accidental damage or purposeful damage gets missed, equally, when the system is not properly manned for normal traffic.  Units gone 'off the radar' take manpower to check, and could possibly be overwhelmed even with a decent 'buffer' in staff that "cheapest tender" rarely provide.

Even without such financial pessimism, one can easily imagine a coordinated sabotaging of willing/unwilling 'uninvolved' tagged-persons, to cover up the few 'involved' ones that wish to gain an advantage over any potential pursuers.  Especially if they arrange for a stooge (or a fellow de-tagged individual) to be in their place and act all surprised when the checkers come over.  (Meanwhile, if anyone's checking up on the de-tagged stooge, it's likely that any pursuit then heads out in the impression that the stooge is the one missing, which the actual escapee finds an easier trap to avoid by the dissimilarities of their profile, even whilst the stooge is still impersonating them through the similarities...)

And with widespread tag-application, the opportunities for find the knack to engineer an undetectable removal increase.  Even if it means cutting the hand/foot off of an innocent (or otherwise disposable) tag-wearer to work with the device at leisure, until the point comes that the same unfortunate individual (and the tag) is disposed of either invisibly (leaving more work for the 'trackers') or visibly-but-obfuscated (e.g. dropped onto the train tracks, both person and tag ending up with damage so easily mistaken for locomotive impact damage).  Meanwhile, those not so keen on losing their own extremities have perhaps learnt the trick to cutting some 'stretch' into the device that doesn't cause an alarm, or found the proper way to gain access through the hard casing, or otherwise discovered the circuits needed to properly 'clone' a pseudo-device.


These simplistic issues have doubtless already been 'imagineered' by both tag-makers and tag-wearers (with safeguards arising, if not there right from the beginning), and there are probably plenty of patents out there for the Ultimate Tag, beyond even my imagination.  (My imagination, by the way, includes various Fitness Tracker-style heart-rate/skin-temperature contact sensors and inertial movement sensors, left unmentioned to the wearer, to cover several methods of unusual operation.  But beware false positives upping the workload if something like putting a (thicker) sock on, under the strap, provokes a broadcast alert and demanding resources be used to applied until the facts are known.)


Anyway, I'm not so sure about using tags.  There's that guy in the US who (having been wrongfully accused/arrested/tried, perhaps even temporarily imprisoned, for someone else's crimes, and not wanting to repeat this) currently self-publishes everything about his life, including financial details, in order to continually be able to prove his location, activities and purchases in advance of any future incident that he thinks might otherwise be erroneously linked to him.  (Interestingly enough, my Google-Fu is insufficient to find out who he is!  Or was.  But should the police come a-knocking again, his hopes (at least back when I first heard about him) now rest upon timestamped video of his every activity verifying his continuing innocence of whatever it is they came a-knocking about.)

So... voluntary use?  Some perceived low-risk individuals prepared to be disadvantaged by the tag, and trusted not to disadvantage the authorities any more than they might otherwise have been expected to do through more physical monitoring or housing in more secure facilities, releasing these resources towards application towards those that are less low-risk...


None of this would have stopped the Paris Attacks (coming back on topic, with a jarring halt).  Monitored individuals would refrain from overtly suspicious behaviours and movements prior to the deadline of the attack (at which point they're likely quicker to act than their monitors are to react), unmonitored and less-monitored intermediaries being used as necessary during preparation.

The authorities no doubt could still detect some elements of such preparations (hence other atrocities that never happened, either reported as foiled or never publicly revealed in any significant detail), but they ideally need to pick up every such instance, whilst those planning such events just need to be lucky every now and then.

And, let's face it, even 'foiled plots' aren't a total loss.  Shoes removed/liquids banned/etc on flights.  Extra costs for all kinds of security measures.  The everyday public polarised towards hating either the foreigners or the authorities more.  All adds to unrest ideal to the needs of the people who are happy to have others try their luck in planning such disturbances, probably distracting everyone from coordinating more diplomatic solutions.

France may (just from what I've read above) have struck harder against those they consider 'responsible', and (for a while, at least, they were never really out for the count) the Taliban were disadvantaged severely by the US's reaction against the sort-of-affiliated actions of AQ.  But Spain cut its military support for the most recent Iraq intervention when they had their train bombings, IIRC (ICBW about the geopolitical target), and misaimed retaliations (Iraq 2 being a prime example, with eyes wide open) are often as useful in recruiting for the target-side, as we all know...


I would dearly love to smart-bomb (or smart-bullet) every 'bad' person on the planet, in one fell-swoop.  Or perhaps as-and-when-required, in the moments just before they actually put their plans into action/direct others to do this.  Some magical system of recognition and/or precognition with some even more magical system of preventing all collateral, and something equally mystic to deal with the psychological fallout of surviving relatives, to persuade them that it was a necessary action.  (Although, with the latter capability, a re-tweak to put the targets under a geas to willingly refrain from wishing their harm, in the first place.  Brave New World, more or less.)  All this is impractical though, especially without a Minority Report system.  (And both Minority Report and Brave New World, as with most utopian/dystopian fictions, had individuals who broke their systems... whether or not they were actually destined, or even willing, to be problems in the first place.)

So, we have retaliation.  But eye-for-an-eye goes wrong when the eye-poked eye-poker pokes the original eye-poker who already (perceived) themselves as having been poked in the eye before that.  "En eye for an eye leads to a world of the blind", I'm sure someone famous has (nearly) said.

We're really only left with "pour encourager les autres".  Or 'discourager'.  But, again, there's the human spirit.  We think that they're utterly wrong in their philisophy and morality, and wonder why they can't just go away; they think that we're utterly wrong in our philosophy and morality, and wonder the same sort of thing.  (Swap "go away" with "become more like us", "stop being like them", etc, if you want... without necessarily restricting the "us" and "them" definitions at this point.  I think the ones that want to swap in the word "die", there are the bad guys, but I'm open enough to the possibility that "live in thrall of superior forces" could be considered a worse fate to impose, so good/bad still ends up being an annoyingly relative terminology.)  Whatever, it's not a problem I plan to solve.  I've a friend who wouldn't mind being the Dictator Of The World, and would probably do a decent job at it (if you poll those who remain alive and at liberty after the first few purges), but it seems a bit too much hard work for my liking, and necessitating the kind of personal conviction that I lack...

Paris.  Remember, again, that this is a thread about Paris.  Even if a lot of what I just wrote isn't directly related.


Anyway, I only decided to post regarding Electronic Tags.  The rest just happened, once I had the fingers on the keyboard.  Still, for a belated PTW message, at least I can't consider it too trivial...
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Morrigi

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #261 on: November 16, 2015, 01:46:22 am »

The headline is pure clickbait. Just don't link Breitbart or defend them, it makes you look silly.
The headline is also entirely true. Also, simply because a site uses clickbait does not mean that it is incapable of decent reporting. It is not nearly as bad as you make it out to be, but you wouldn't know that because you aren't even trying to be objective or neutral here.
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Reelya

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #262 on: November 16, 2015, 01:47:43 am »

Did you read those headlines? you have to be retarded to consider those a reasonable set of tech headlines. If that's your main tech news you'd become less informed about tech, not more.

Morrigi

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #263 on: November 16, 2015, 01:48:24 am »

Did you read those headlines? you have to be retarded to consider those a reasonable set of tech headlines.
Did you read any of the articles? Shitty headlines is one thing, shitty reporting is another. The Jubbal article is reasonably well-written. Also, I don't read any news or tech site in particular regularly, I get my information from many sources.
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Reelya

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #264 on: November 16, 2015, 01:51:48 am »

Seriously? Well the anti-renewable energy headline got my attention. It was basically completely predictable that they'd only ever write negative news about electric cars.

I can tell you right now they'd only spin it to cover when something to do with electric cars goes wrong and will never write a positive article no matter how major the news is. They have a 100% politicized filter on what you're going to hear there. You're not going to get anything like a balanced set of articles on any topic there.

It's easy to see the spin. The headline is that the electric car system is "imploding". i.e. a doomsday story. But the actual story is that demand is rising faster than they can roll out supply. Which is generally a good sign. The free market should respond right? Meaning more charging stations everywhere.

imagine if I wrote a headline that "wallmart is imploding" and what I actually mean is that heaps of people are trying to shop at walmart, meaning there are long queues at the checkout? That would be clearly misleading, because more business is good, not bad.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 01:58:43 am by Reelya »
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Flying Dice

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #265 on: November 16, 2015, 02:54:18 am »

That League story whose headline you cited as "not clickbait"? Thing is, that was total clickbait. The survey questions were straight from the NPI, and it's transparently an attempt on Riot's part to approach the problem of negative/hostile/whatever players proactively in future rather than retroactively by punishing offenses. It was also widely reported as being mandatory, which was blatantly false to anyone capable of parsing English to a reasonable degree; see the response to those claims:

Quote
When a player has an offensive name and it’s reported by the community, then we change it for them. It's a standard process for games and online platforms. Players can opt out of the free name change survey and play with their assigned names or they can pay for a name change. The survey helps players think about their behavior and this benefits the entire community.

"News" outlets find story, blow completely out of proportion, fabricate claims, roll with eye-grabbing headlines, and then sheepishly issue retractions later. Total clickbait. And that's the best example of a non-clickbait headline you managed to pull from breitbart.
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Morrigi

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #266 on: November 16, 2015, 06:17:52 am »

No, that's the example I found with zero effort. Here's a headline and article that does nothing but states the facts of the matter, with claims and counter-claims: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/13/tor-project-accuses-fbi-of-paying-university-to-compromise-its-network/
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Antioch

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #267 on: November 16, 2015, 06:27:39 am »

can we get back on topic?
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Vilanat

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #268 on: November 16, 2015, 06:29:52 am »

The Guardian have posted an important piece about the thought process behind ISIS

this document which is basically Al-qaeda in Iraq manifesto and extremely popular among them and which have been linked here before could and should be read directly..

Another important read is Al-Qaeda 7 steps plan, first published in 2005 if i am not mistaken.
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TempAcc

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Re: The Paris Attacks
« Reply #269 on: November 16, 2015, 08:02:31 am »

A niece of a friend of mine decided to cancel her ongoing trip around Paris after the terrorist attack. She didn't witness it, but she was close enough from the site of the attack to clearly hear the bombs going off and participate in the following panic. Her friends apparently told her of increasing tensions with some local muslim groups after France joined the anti-ISIS effort, but none of them believed it would get to this point. They believe the attack was a premeditated action by local cells that got triggered by recent events, rather than an escalation of bad feelings towards France on the part of local less than friendly muslims.
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