If so you are kidding yourself. Never mind them not being armed with any anti-ship weapons (which are rather complicated to design, manufacture, and make work), they aren't facing up against their real military counterparts. These little narco-boats are not being hunted by US Navy subs and ASW ships. They are just dealing with the DEA and coast guard.

Also they have a much easier job of staying undetected than an attack sub. When you are just trying to get from point a to point b, subs can be fairly sneaky. However when they launch an attack, everyone knows where they are when said attack happens.

If they tried to interdict merchant shipping lanes and sink ships, they'd quickly find out they are playing in a league they can't deal with. To give you an idea:

A narco sub is 40 to 80 feet in length, made of fiberglass, wood, and maybe steel, has a diesel engine, can go about 6 knots, has a range of maybe 2000nm and generally isn't fully submersible. One of the few found that was (found before its maiden voyage I might add) could go about 300 feet under water. No design optimization for silent operation, no sonar, no torpedoes, weapons are only whatever the 3-6 crew have.

Against that would be the Virgina class attack subs. 377 feet long, made of reenforced steel and classified composites. Has a nuclear engine with unlimited range, and diesel backup, and go "more than 25 knots" the government won't say what its actual max speed is. Likewise it has demonstrated a public test dive to 800 feet, real max depth classified. It carries 12 tomahawk missiles, and has 4 torpedo tubes that can fire Mark 48 torpedoes (it carries 26 total of them) or harpoon anti-ship missiles. It has the best passive and active sonar systems the US has ever made, all the capabilities are classified. It has been designed to be as silent as possible and is supposed to be as quiet underway as a Seawolf tied to a pier (already a very quiet sub).

You really think there's any comparison?

You have to remember for all the chatter of a "war on drugs" it is really just an ineffectual police action. When one of these narco subs gets spotted, the crew scuttles it so as to not get caught with anything. The coast guard then rescues the crew. They are just (semi) stealthy drug transports.

If they were being used to interdict and sink shipping traffic, there would be a REAL war and these things wouldn't be looked for so their crews could be taken in to custody, they'd be blown the fuck up. Wouldn't just be the US on their ass either, though they would be the biggest threat, merchant ships are flagged from nations all over the world, they'd all be out for blood if they were getting blown up.

I think what some people forget is that the plant was hit with the worst natural disaster, short of a meteor strike, that it could be. A 9.0 quake, which are exceedingly rare (and remember the scale is logarithmic) and a massive tsunami. Then there were a number of fuckups in the response, like not having the right kind of generator on hand. All that, and it still didn't "do a Chernobyl."

None of that is to say it is perfectly safe, but it should provide some perspective on the thing.

The guy is a professional troll (actual name Mark Stephens). Literally, he writes stupid shit designed to inflame people. He's wrong all the time (he predicted big Y2K problems on account of Windows NT), he's a liar (claimed to have a PhD from Stanford, was in fact a TA) and so on.

Don't give his dumb ass the ad revenue from links.

Just as a simple counterpoint, his data about earthquakes is totally fucked. This was the biggest quake on record in Japan, previous winner was an 8.6 in 1707. Also, while quakes happen over there all the time, they don't all happen in the same spot. For example in 2003 there was a pretty big one in Hokkaido, an 8.3, that only caused one death. However if you look at a map you find that Hokkaido is quite a distance from Tohoku where the last quake was off of. So even if a quake happens in 10 years (like he has any idea if that will happen) there's no saying if it happens in the same place.

Guy is a moronic troll that has made a good living of it for years. Stop feeding him.

People (Americans in particular) want to discount genetics, pretend that we can all be anything we want to be, that we have no inbuilt limitations.

Of course we know that is false. Most simply it can be seen (and strangely the one area it is accepted) is athletics. Some people have the genes that allows them to become top athletes, the rest don't and that is that. We also see in athletics the difference between men and women, that the genders are not equal at the top, they have areas they are better in.

Well, this carries over to mental, emotional, and other differences as well. Your genetics don't dictate who you are, but they do define some limits on you and also what you might be interested in.

So you are going to see differences in the interest of the genders, even without any societal forces. One interesting example I see is veterinary medicine. Since it has become a field that was acceptable for women to work in (used to be teaching and nursing was all that was considered "ok" for women to be in) it has become very popular for women. The vet office I use is ALL female. All the vets, all the vet techs, all the receptionists, all women. From what I've learned, the heavy amount of women is not an anomaly, it is a field that women have a lot of interest in.

Now why is that? I'm not sure, I've never seen any research on it. Perhaps it is the nurturing aspect that appeals to many women. Whatever the case it certainly isn't something where there's a big push in society to "get women in to veterinary medicine" yet it is happening. It appeals to women, so they go in to it.

None of this is to say that culture and childhood encouragement don't play a part, of course. If a girl is interested in computers but continually told that "girls don't play with computers" that can well change the course of her life. However we have to be open to the idea that just as different individuals have different predispositions, so do the sexes.

We may always see a situation where there are less women interested in IT than men. Frankly I don't think that should be a concern, so long as we make sure it isn't because women are being unfairly forced away from it. I would think it far worse to try and start pressuring women in to careers they don't like all with some misguided idea of "balance".

I guess I feel pretty strongly about this because computers were something I always wanted to do, since as long as I can remember. This wasn't because of my family, mom, dad, grandparents, none of them are technically savvy. However I loved computers and electronics and was fascinated by it from age 3. Clearly it is just one of those things about me, a genetic predisposition. I'm glad I got to follow that, and I wasn't told to do something different because people decided that I should have interests other than that.

People like to repeat it without much actual proof.

HOWEVER even if true it doesn't matter. Why? Because after Apple entered the market price fixing was clearly in place. Ebooks cost MORE than their physical counterparts. There is no way anyone can say that is reasonable or necessary. It costs less to distribute an electronic copy than it does to distribute a physical copy. As such there's no way the final price should be more.

If prices had risen a little, I'd say "Ok, maybe Amazon was forcing the publishers in to prices that were too low." However I'm sorry, but this shit does not need to cost more than physical books.

Also, surprise, surprise, now that the DOJ is involved that has been changing. Ebook prices aren't as low as they were initially but they are lower than the physical book prices (from most publishers at least).

I don't mind companies needing to make a reasonable amount of money for their product. I mind being screwed. When I go to Amazon to buy Dune and the paperback version is $12 but the Kindle version is $15 along with a "This price was set by the publisher" message you telling me there isn't some bullshit collusion going on? How the hell can a digital edition cost more than the paperback (brand new paperback mind you).

Same shit but worse at B&N. They'll sell me Dune for $10 in paperback, they are undercutting Amazon on it but the Nook Book? $15. Hmmmm...

So sorry, but Apple and the publishers colluded to raise prices, and it has hurt consumers, and the DOJ is on to them about it. They can't white knight their way out of this.

Money is just a theoretical construct to facilitate trade, nothing more nothing less. It isn't anything real, even if the tokens used to represent it are real items. It is a theoretical store of value, something that everyone agrees to use. This leads to a couple properties of money:

1) Money is only useful, and thus only really money, if you can spend it. I can call whatever I want "money" I can even "back" it with whatever else I want. Doesn't matter, if it isn't something others will accept, it isn't money, it doesn't function as a currency. It has to be something you can spend, otherwise it doesn't make trade happen and thus isn't useful.

2) Money also is only useful if people DO spend it. Like I said, it is something to facilitate trade. So even if you have something that every person in the world agrees is valuable and they'd take as payment, say the Hope Diamond, if people don't actually spend it, use it to get something, then it isn't money. It only functions as money when people spend it to have others give them goods and services. If everyone just keeps it in a box and nobody spends it, then it isn't money.

So ya, if you can't spend Bitcoins on anything but illegal drugs from one site and maybe a couple online games that almost nobody plays it really isn't money. What's more, even with vendors like that you can tell it isn't money, just a payment system. People buy the bitcoins with actual money, pay, and the people they paid convert it back to USD or other currency. It is just a money laundering system, it isn't being used as currency and spent and respent, held and moved around.

Until it is something that people can use in a lot of places, until it is something that people will accept in many places it isn't a real currency.

Also this is why government currencies are so useful, is because they have a big amount of automatic acceptance. The government will accept them as payment for taxes, so right there is a big use for it. If I want to pay my takes, the US government wants US dollars for them. If you live in any developed nation, and most developing ones, paying your taxes is something you'll be doing. Also the government requires that they are accepted to settle any debts.

So if I owe someone for something in the US, they have to accept US dollars to settle it. They could agree on another kind of settlement, but accepting the government's currency is mandatory. My power company can't say "You used X amount of electricity last month so we want a goat from you to settle the debt, we'll take nothing else." They could offer to take a goat, instead of US dollars, if they wanted but they HAVE to take US dollars to settle the debt.

That, combined with the credibility of a currency backed by the government of the place where you live, makes it something people are quite interested in using. It makes it something they'll spend, and agree to receive, which makes it money.

Right now, bitcoins don't function as money hardly at all. People speculate on them, and some places use them to launder money (Silk Road doesn't hold on to bitcoins, they convert them back to currency immediately, they just use it to mask transactions). That isn't money, isn't a currency, in any real way. You get Amazon and Walmart to start taking them, you get them traded on the Forex market, you get it to where people will agree to be paid in bitcoins and not immediately convert them to something else, then you've got a currency.

If I want to buy stocks, I go to some place like the NYSE which has a ton of regulation and checks and oversight in it. If I want to buy US dollars I can do it from a bank, which have a ton of regulation and oversight. If I want to purchase US bonds, well I do that from the US government itself.

Where can I buy bitcoins? Well some place run by a 17 year old kid in Singapore, some service run by a guy who calls himself "MagicalTux" and his company out of somewhere in Asia...

Hmmm, seems like maybe there is a bit of a problem with the credibility of bitcoin in terms of the credibility of the exchanges.

If these are the only kind of places that want to deal with bitcoins, well maybe ask yourself why. Also for regular people it doesn't really even matter why, it matters that it is. When you can deal with USD or Euros or JPY at a stable, regulated, monitored bank, but bitcoins with some kid in Singapore, well then where keep your money becomes much more simple.

In terms of what the US has, well have a look at the AH-64D. That's the current unclassified nifty toy, though it has been around for a bit. Particularly look at the longbow package, the thing that makes a D variant what it is. It is a rather big upgrade. Remember that with things like tanks n' choppers n' so on the fundamental design may be kept for many years with various upgrades made to it. The US still uses B-52s but they are far more advanced today, despite being the same airframe.

You could look at it sort of like a computer: Maybe you keep the same case and powersupply, that doesn't mean you don't upgrade the components.

Then of course there's whatever the US has that it wont' tell people about. The Bin Laden raid inadvertently revealed that there is something. The tail of the helicopter that didn't get destroyed was from no known design out there. So the US has a classified helicopter. Big surprise there. Who knows what precisely it is capable of (hence why it would be classified)?

Also don't confuse propaganda with results. Iran says they have a bunch of helicopters. Ok, how well do they work? Where they proof? We know the AH-64Ds the US have work, not only are there plenty of videos of the playing around in training simulations, but they've been used in actual combat. There's no question they do what they say. Iran says they have a domestically produced Cobra. Ok, does it even fly? If it does, is it any good at combat maneuvers? How are its weapons?

If there's no answer to that it could be because they want to keep it secret, but that would be a little silly given the US already knows what the Cobras do. It also could be because the thing doesn't work near as well as it should.

Think about the cheap Chinese knockoff market for devices: You find these things that look nearly or completely the same, but don't work at all as well as the device they copied. One that readily comes to mind are EOTech holographic weapon sights. Real EOTechs cost $400 and up and are combat sights, as in the military actually DOES use them in combat. Very rugged and reliable, they don't lose their zero, are waterproof, and have great optics (the best anti-glare coating I've ever seen).

The Chinese knockoffs? They cost maybe $50-100 in the US, probalby less there. They look like EOTechs, they try to copy as much of the markings as they can and they are physically similar, though built out of different plastic and plastic in some places the EOTechs are metal. However that's where it ends. The optics are garbage, they aren't waterproof, the "nightvision" button doesn't make them work with NV just changes the colour, they lose zero with the recoil from fired shots, and they break down easily.

That they make a copy doesn't mean they make a good copy.

They are a fine design, presuming Iran has all the parts working right (there's more to making a perfect copy than making it look similar). However they've got nothing on modern choppers. It isn't even so much the actual bits that have to do with flying, but the electronics for communications and attack.

What makes the AH-64D so fearsome is the whole "longbow system". So one helicopter with longbow radar, could even by a Cobra with it, sneaks forward and peaks its radar dome up over the trees or buildings. This gets an accurate map of all the enemy forces, and cross decks it to all the Apaches lying back in waiting. The scout makes itself scarce, and the other pop up and fire off a volley of hellfires from around 5 miles away. These all go for their designated targets, there aren't any unintentional overlaps, and hit.

The system lets a mass targeting like that take place. One platform finds them, the rest blow them up and you don't have any problems of multiple designations where like 4 choppers shoot the same tank or something.

So if Iran has a longbow system ready to go, ok then maybe they have something. Notice the article says nothing about that and they'd probably be bragging on it if they did.

1) Trying to run away from good security practice by going to something you perceive to be less targeted or better able to save you from yourself isn't a good idea. Hate to break it to you but really Windows itself is pretty good security wise these days. If you are having trouble the question to be asking yourself is what is wrong with the way things are set up. To me it is like having your house robbed and moving to a new neighbourhood, rather than locking your door at night. We run a mixed environment at work, and we don't have many Windows security issues, despite it being our big OS. Reason is we have a good security setup that provides defense in depth. We have real proactive security, not ostrich security.

2) Because often the products businesses need aren't available for Linux. People will point to half-assed alternatives because said half-assed alternatives are the best they can find. "Just write your own," is completely unfeasible to many companies, and uneconomical to others. If you'd save $X in terms of security issues and licensing but spend $X*10 to develop and support your software that does what you need, it isn't a good move.

3) Because Linux doesn't always, maybe even not usually, have a lower TCO. In our environment it requires a hell of a lot more fiddling than Windows to make it work. Our Linux lead spends a lot of time hacking around with things to make them work right, and dealing with customized setups (which we do a lot of being a research university) is a pain. I spend way less time fiddling to make Windows work, and not because I'm smarter to better than him. He's damn good. It just seems to be more trouble to get Linux to do what we need, the enterprise support tools aren't as robust.

Remember that security is only one facet of cost, and also remember Linux doesn't provide perfect security. You can argue if it is better or not, though many of the better arguments are just arguments of less targeting. Things like malware that the user has to download and run, an OS can provide no defense against that short of trusted computing or the like.

So you have to look at what it would cost and save in total.

Also as I said, really security talk needs to be about defense in depth and how to prevent problems, not about trying to run away from them. Security failures WILL happen, anyone who's done physical security know there's no such thing as a perfect defense, everything is fallible, and you have to have layers and you have to monitor and adapt to maintain good security.

I would rank a place high security that runs Windows but does things like: Have regular users run deprivileged and not hand out admin accounts. Have a good, but sensible password policy and use two factor authentication. Have all systems patched regularly and quickly and monitored. Run a host based firewall on all systems. Run an on access and on download virus scanner on all systems, centrally monitored. Run a network based firewall and IDS, maybe even more than one. Segments servers from workstations and only allows the access needed. Proactively monitors for problems. And so on.

I would rank a place low security if they just run Linux, give local users sudo, and say "Have fun, Linux is safe!"

Linux could potentially help with security, that would need to be evaluated by someone competent case-by-case. Linux does not give good security, it is layers and a process, not a magic bullet.