That's true for nation states, but not so much for jihadists. Generally speaking, jihadists don't have the budget, expertise, or organization to carry out effective disinformation, and their counterintel is spotty at best. (Hell, our own is spotty, at best.) That's perhaps one of the reasons the IC has such a hardon for the WoT -- it's a case of overwhelming dominance. At least technologically and economically. When we can't tap in technologically (such as when they're avoiding technology altogether), we can often bribe our way in.

While it's dubious that the IC has stopped any direct plots against the US, at least any of potential note, they're basically waging the entire WoT overseas themselves, from strategy, to targeting, to execution, in both senses of the word, with the DoD playing more of a supporting role.

we think both genders get the same opportunities only they don't, not really

Yes, but any "things are not as they appear" argument requires more evidence than just speculation. At least, it should. That's what differentiates a legitimate concern from a conspiracy theory. If there is an orange and an apple in front of me, and I eat the orange, you can speculate that it's because society has conditioned me to choose oranges over apples, whether through marketing, or peer pressure, or depictions of oranges in popular culture, or you can simply accept the obvious truth that I would usually rather eat oranges.

Yes, there are lower numbers of women in tech than men. But we know, through experience and observation, that there is no doorman turning away women from such endeavors. And when there are no obstacles, then the simplest explanation is choice. People may suspect there are other factors at play, but it's not worth trying to solve a problem if that problem does not, in fact, exist. At best, this issue requires a root-cause research and analysis, not a full-court press to get women into tech by any means necessary. And believe me, I would love to have more female co-workers. The ones I do have love their jobs, though, and they're good at it, and they're not harassed at all. If anything, they're subjected to more white-knighting than in any other industry I've seen.

The only reason you work is because most people don't use you. Success is the shortest path to failure, because websites *will* find another way to serve ads, whether it's through an EULA or randomizing/obfuscating the references to ads, or even serving the pages as images. Please stop trying to become more popular.

I'm a fellow veteran. My point is more that it's not really a war unless there are risks, not that anyone should lust after battle. Of course you try to manage those risks, but you recognize that it exists as well. No risk, no reward, as they say.

but the idea is to force the OTHER side into submission

Glad you mentioned that. Airstrikes in general, and drones in particular, are notably ineffective at forcing the other side into submission. As I mentioned, they're fine as part of a larger strategy with boots on the ground, but nobody ever surrendered to a drone, which means they're not a viable alternative. Drones are the poster children for recruiting.

If there's a conflict where we don't want boots on the ground, then it's a conflict where we shouldn't have drones in the air. There might be exceptions, where it's one person or a small group of people that can be dealt with in one or a handful of strikes, but you can't beat an army with air strikes. Or at least, no one's demonstrated how that might be accomplished yet.

Also, we'll have to agree to disagree vis a vis the absurdity of risking our own lives. Do you think the military is training its soldiers and Marines that it's "absurd" to risk their lives? They're not. The tree of liberty is refreshed with the blood of patriots, not the oil of unmanned aircraft. If it's not worth risking our own lives, then, on principle, we shouldn't be involved. Drone strikes, like patriot missiles before them, and carpet bombing before them, have shown themselves to be a political expediency to "do something" without any cost in human life, which is trying to have your cake and eat it too. And worse, it's not a viable method of winning a war.

The aviation industry is kind of a Ponzi scheme.

Yeah, I took an introductory flight lesson last week, and sort of figured that out when they started explaining how I could easily be an instructor and make my money back! It reminded me of when I got PADI certified.

Personally, I just wanted to do it as a hobby, and be able to buy or rent a small plane and make short trips, because I go out of town almost every weekend, but it turned out that small planes are too slow, and the ranges are too small. And of course I would still have to drive to the nearest airfield, which is an hour away. I might still get my private pilot's license just because it's fun, and for bragging rights, but now that I realize that I won't get any utility out of it whatsoever, I'm less motivated.

In my experience, most people actually talk to their SO's about what they do or did. It's not something they *never* do, but discretion is required. That said, the paranoid ones are untrustworthy anyway, so you were right to keep your mouth shut, and you are better off without them.

Not really daily, these days, but I'm sort of glad they're burning out. Battles should be fought by people, not avatars. When we remove the cost of war in human terms, then we've removed the fundamental disincentive against war, and that's a terrible thing for nation that claims to be peaceful. At least, that's what we used claim before 9/11. Since then it's been all war, all the time.

To be fair, I don't necessarily have a problem with drones as part of a larger strategy, but in the past few years, they've supplanted a larger strategy instead of augmenting it. It's like filling a battlefield full of snipers and nothing else. It's not a recipe for success.

The difference is that the HTTPS certs are auditable -- they are truly public, in the common understanding of the word. To my knowledge, there is no way to audit Apple's repository.

My line of thinking when it comes to security is that "good enough" has been repeatedly shown not to be. We know the best practices, so why not follow them? Every time someone compromises, whether it's in the RNG, or allowing infinite login attempts, or allowing degraded connections, or inventing their own untested encryption (which may be the case for iMessage), it gets exploited. As my old man used to say, the shortcut is to do it the right way the first time.

Cigarettes are already free of trans fat.

1) They hold the public keys. But the risk isn't them decrypting with your private key, it's them adding their own public key (or one they generate) to your list of keys without your knowledge. Apple could send your public iPhone key, your public Ipad key, and their own generated snopping public key to the sending device, and no one would be the wiser. You can read about it here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/...

2) There's a setting to turn off "Send as SMS," but under some circumstance, it might not honor that setting. For example, if you're texting someone who's not using an iPhone. Ideally, a user should have more strict control.

As I said, default iMessage encryption is good, in that it guards against mass surveillance in most cases, but there's certainly room for improvement.

This is a case of selection bias. We see people posting ridiculous things, so we think everyone does, but believe me, there are plenty of people who don't post stupid shit to Facebook, and are -- not surprisingly -- very competent and responsible people, or who are at least competent enough to appear to responsible. There's no shortage of competition for jobs in sensitive industries, whether it's finance, government, or law, and yes, they pass on people who post stupid shit on Facebook.

Apple technically has end-to-end encryption, but the problem is the key exchange. Apple retains the keys for all of your devices, which is how one iMessage can be sent to multiple devices. The way it works is that the sender communicates with Apple's servers to obtain a list of public keys for devices registered to the recipient. The sender then encrypts the message once per key, and sends the encrypted messages to Apple, who then distributes them to each device. In theory, and likely in practice, Apple cannot see the contents of the messages transiting its servers, since it doesn't have the private keys.

But, as the custodian, Apple could add keys to this list at any time, including their own, or one at the behest of a TLA. This may or may not happen, so it's really a question of what risk you're willing to take. Their current method, if implemented properly, would prevent your plaintext messages from being swept up in mass collection, but without knowing the encryption method and the security details surrounding the keystore, you could still be targeted. Add to that that iMessage silently falls back to SMS, so if someone had the ability to block your tcp/ip traffic, the iDevice would transmit in the clear. It's an improvement over pure plaintext, but it's still fraught with risk and insecurities that will likely be exploited at some point, if the past experience is any indication.

Your bank can already track your location. They have your home address, and they know everywhere you go based on where you swipe your card. If the police are tracking you, it's one of the first resources they will use.

That said, no, my bank app doesn't use location services. At least, not yet.