Biggest Whistle..

Julian Assange is at it again. Assange, of WikiLeaks fame, is known for "opening governments" by leaking classified documents or documentaries. As of recent, his primary target has been the Iraq war and bringing out its apparent injustices.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks

During July of this year, Wikileaks released 70,000 files concerning the Afghan war. It was one of, if not THE, largest leaks of all time. As one might imagine, the U.S. government was non too pleased. The Pentagon is now bracing for another publication. This one containing a grand total of 400,000 documents. In response to the possible leak,     "the US military has assembled a 120-member team to prepare for the expected publication" (BBC). WikiLeaks claims that any and all names have  been removed from the documents to protect those within them.

The government, somewhat understandably, does not want these documents to be released and is doing whatever it can to prevent them from being brought to the light. They have blocked any revenue from ads coming in for the site. It is possible that government agencies have started a smear campaign against Assange. For instance, Assange is under investigation for an alleged sex crime that he claims that he did not do, and claims that the allegations are a part of this very same smear campaign. But what does the government have to hide? When can we "justify the government in silencing private speakers who seek to express contrary views" (Gey)? The correct answer should be never. If nothing wrong is happening, then why hide the truths?


Gey, S. (2010). Why Should the First Amendment Protect Government Speech When the Government Has Nothing To Say?. Iowa Law Review, 95(4), 1259-1314. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.


Pentagon Braces for New Iraq War Wikileaks Publication. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11562494.

Keep Your Enemies Closer..

Back to that good ol' subject of war.

The ongoing war between the Israelis and Palestinians is by far the most well known, unfortunately, throughout the world. It's also known for the multitude of atrocities that have occurred on both sides. Both sides have participated in heinous acts, especially against children, intentionally or not. Hell, just searching for 'Israel' and 'children' (or any image regarding this conflict) on Google for morally appropriate pictures shows how horrible it is.  Both sides, as well, have not always appropriately punished those that had caused unjust harm. Their justice systems, if you can call them that, have been rather lenient when dealing with their respective soldiers.

In 2009, Israeli soldiers seized an apartment in Tel al-Hawa, a suburb of Gaza City, where they rounded up all of its residents. Searching through the building, soldiers discovered two bags in a bathroom. And being the geniuses that they are, two Israeli sergeants decided that it would be best to not open the bags before checking for possible traps. So, what do they do? They grab a child, against his will, of course, and tell him to inspect the bags. Nothing was in the first bag, but the boy was unable to open the second so the soldiers shot the bag and the boy was returned physically unharmed. And this, by the way, is only ONE event out of many that led to the indictment of "several officers and soldiers". Now, there are a hundred things wrong with this.  There was nothing in the bags, luckily for the boy's sake, and the brave little soldiers were put on trial and were convicted and punished with prison time.

War crimes are present on both sides. We, they, someone, needs to make sure that the appropriate actions are taken at the end of this.. thing. Whenever, if, that will ever be.

Read the article HERE.

Bronner, E. (2010). Israeli Soldiers Convicted of Using Boy as Shield. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html?_r=2&hpw.

Rane, H. (2009). Jihad, competing norms and the Israel-Palestine impasse. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 63(1), 41-63. doi:10.1080/10357710802666125.

Taking the War to the Interwebs.. Almost

The idea that battlefields would be taking place over the internet has been bounced around for quite some time. And no, not only the video game wars.
We're talking about viruses.

Iran has always been known to contract the most computer viruses on the entire planet. This past week Iran's nuclear power plant was attacked by one of the meanest viruses constructed to date. The Stuxnet worm, the virus at hand, is unlike anything ever seen before. 0day exploits are very, very, valuable to people that create viruses and this particular virus has a total of four of them, which is absolutely insane. These exploits got their name because hackers find, well, exploits in software before they are released and spread them among their comrades. They are sold for, on average, about $5,000 with the most expensive one going for $250,000. Yeah, they are that important because the exploits are almost impossible to find before it is too late. When the software is released with these holes, users are easily attacked. It is then a fight between the hackers and the creators of the software. The exploits are found on the zeroth, or first, day, which is how these exploits got their name. Having one of these 0day contained viruses would make anyone's life a living hell, but four? That would cause absolute and total chaos and irreparable, and it is a major risk to have so much punch in one piece of code.

It is believed that a "'nation state'" created this virus and aimed it particularly at Iran's nuclear power plant. Because of the payload that this malware contained, only a nation could have funded the work that went into this code. And the fact that this same code was filled with four 0day exploits meant that they were going for a kill shot; to cause crippling amounts of damage, despite the risk that was involved stuffing so much power in one attack.

Iranian President touring the facility in 2008.

But what REALLY makes this virus nasty is that it could have actually affected machines in this nuclear power plant that could have caused unbelievable damage. The code could have reprogrammed programmable logic control software that "'turn on and off motors, monitor temperature, turn coolers if a gauge goes over a certain temperature'", things that are OUTSIDE of a computer system. And I do believe that those are at least a tiny bit important in a nuclear facility. This makes this Stuxnet worm absoltely remarkable and a first of its kind.

The fact that this piece of code, this malware, was constructed to cause damage to the real world just shows that wars are starting to turn to the internet for the front lines.


SOURCES:

Fildes, J. (2010). Stuxnet Worm 'Targeted High-Value Iranian Assets'. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018.

Murchu, L. (2010). Stuxnet Using Three Additional Zero-Day Vulnerabilities. Retrieved from http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/stuxnet-using-three-additional-zero-day-vulnerabilities.

Reals, T. (2010). Stuxnet Worm a U.S. Cyber-Attack on Iran Nukes?. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20017507-501465.html.

Respect. That is All.

This blog post won't be too deep in thought. The content will still leave you in awe.

Kunar Province, Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan has been going on for years. We all know this. Now, I'm not going to discuss whether war is good or if it is bad. It just is. It's just a part of the life that we are currently living in. Hopefully, we will never be directly affected by it. But someone's got to fight for our country during these horrible times. What is going on overseas needs to be heard and seen so that the public can be informed of what exactly our men and women are doing. I have the absolute utmost respect for our troops.

Ground force refueling operation

I stumbled across THIS video of a marine take a bullet to the head during my research. He was saved by his helmet. I can't even image how he felt. I always feel a strange mix of emotions wash over me when I see images or videos such as this. My jaw is always left wide open for the entire clip, and this one was no different. Of course, there are other videos out there of troops doing horrible things, wrongdoings that are unspeakable and that should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. I have no respect for them. None at all. But a few should not determine the feelings toward the whole.

Memorial ceremony

With troops being pulled out of Iraq, I felt like writing a quick post about them and how I feel.
Writing some random blog post is not even close, not by a long shot, to expressing my overall gratitude.
They deserve more.

**Links may contain images/videos of violence.**
Read the article, watch the video HERE.
Look at pictures HERE and HERE.


SOURCES:
Foley, J. (2010). On Location: A Firefight in Kunar Province. Retrieved from http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/100917/location-firefight-kunar-province.

Taylor, A. (2010). Afghanistan, February, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/afghanistan_february_2010.html.

Taylor, A. (2010). Afghanistan, August, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/afghanistan_august_2010.html.

The Shotgun or the Egg..?

Men have killed for some pretty lowly reasons. This one has to top the list. Stanley Neace of Jackson, Kentucky, killed five people and then himself after apparently receiving eggs that were not made to his liking. Of course, it was not ONLY for the eggs that caused this catastrophe. Neace was in the process of being evicted from his trailer due to his ever increasing hostility towards his neighbors. This horrible event was simply caused by a single straw that finally broke the camel's back. Neace killed his wife, stepdaughter and three neighbors before finally shooting himself as police arrived.

Neace was known to "have a violent history". There are no other details going into past or what sort of violence that he was involved with. We do know that he was considered to be "'unpredictable.. [where] little things would set him off'". One of the biggest causes to blame would simply have to be stress. The man was facing eviction, paying child support, while receiving Social Security for an unknown disability, which would have to always be on his mind. Could this have been prevented? Maybe. It was unlikely that this man could have paid for the proper medication to help alleviate his issues. It's just unfortunate to see this happen to people that don't deserve it.

Gunman's Trailer When Police Arrived

Read the article HERE.

SOURCES: 

Fundukian, L. (2008). The Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Health. Gale Virtual Reference Library, 1108.

Barrouquere, B. (2010). Relative: Ky. Gunman was Enraged Over Breakfast. Retrieved from http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/relative-ky-gunman-was-611494.html.

Hug a Tree!

The environment means the world to many people. Some tend to go a tad bit far when it comes to their feelings on the matter. The Discovery Channel headquarters faced this unfortunate realization about five days ago. A man identified as James Lee took multiple employees hostage for approximately four hours at one of the station's buildings. Lee, who some may call an "environmental militant", took the hostages by gunpoint and claimed to have an explosive device attached to his chest that was supposed to detonate, but fortunately did not, at his command.

SWAT negotiated with the gunman for multiple hours. Lee ran a website found HERE that contained his rather.. hmm.. insane(?) demands. He came to the conclusion that The Discovery Channel was not helping the world's problems about humanity and its "DISGUSTING FILTH". In the end, Lee was shot by snipers when he pointed his gun at a hostage. Because of the quite possibly real threat of explosives in the building, medical teams could not get to the environmental terrorist in time. Lee died later on the scene.

Personally, I think the man got what was coming. Are there multiple problems with the environment now? Sure there are, but this was no way to go about fixing them. Environmental terrorism is a real thing and never ends well and rarely accomplishes anything. At best, an issue is brought to light. The man already had a problematic history with Discovery, but instead of just giving up he kept on pushing his luck. Can I respect him for trying to protect the environment? Ehh... well, no, not really. Maybe to a small, very small, point. I can agree with him that things need to change for the good of nature. But saying that "the planet does not need humans" is sort of crossing the line for me. It's also somewhat interesting how he always refers to him(?), us(?), people in general(?) as "the humans". It gives us a perspective into the mind of a crazed man with rather larger than life expectations.

Do you agree with what Lee did? Do you think that his goal was achieved?

Read the article for yourself HERE.

SOURCES:

Effron, L. and Goldman, R. (2010). Environmental Militant Killed by Police at Discovery Channel Headquarters. ABC. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/US/gunman-enters-discovery-channel-headquarters-employees-evacuated/story?id=11535128&page=1.

Lee, J. (2010). My Demands. Retrieved from http://savetheplanetprotest.com/.

Ripe for the... Destruction?

This is not exactly the most important or awe inspiring news going on right now, but it is somewhat interesting. In lieu of its growing population, Russia is selling off its land to the highest bidding developer. Okay, sure, that's fine, nothing wrong going on here in terms of the law. However, at a morality standpoint, Russia might be destroying a piece of great historical importance pertaining to its past, and its future.

Roll back to World War II. German forces are "blocking food and supplies to the Russian city of St. Petersburg", aka today's Leningrad. People are starving. At the same time, a cache of rare plant seeds and potatoes are being kept and maintained by Russian scientists. They guarded this rare collection in fear that "years of research into food would be ruined". This collection of assorted fruits was being studied because it had properties that allowed it to survive in warmer or harsher climates.

Well, these scientists, and the rest of Russia for that matter, were starving. So, they had two choices: eat the very thing that they put years of research in, or starve to death in hopes that future generations could continue their research. The scientists decided to starve to death to protect what they worked so hard for.

Their research has survived to this day and is still being studied at Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in Russia. Unfortunately, parts of this land, land that contains plants that are grown absolutely nowhere else, are up for sale by the government and will be demolished so that homes can be placed there.

Now, I like to think with a level head. Legally, there is nothing going wrong in the eyes of the (Russian) law. This land 'belongs' to the State and may do what it pleases with it. Land is something that is not exactly easy to come by and people DO need a place to live after all. And parts of the land appear to be rundown and might be considered an eyesore to many. The Institute could probably still continue its research without this land. 

The morality of the situation needs to be considered, though. Twelve scientists did give their lives in hopes of their research surviving, so that what they were doing decades ago would make an impact on the future. Also, these particular plants contain strands that allow them to survive in rather harsh climates. With global warming, an apparently large and alive issue in the foreseeable future, this research is exactly what the world needs. The thought of moving the entire collection was considered, but it would be impossible to do.

Both sides of the issue need to be observed, really. It's merely a matter of perspective and how far down the line you want to look at. Homes for the now, or fruits for the future? I'm sure that many (including myself) see the obvious and best action to be taken, but which is it?

What do you think?

Read the entire articles and base your opinions from HERE and HERE.

SOURCES:

Greene, D. (2010). Researchers Fight to Save Fruits of Their Labor. NPR. 

       Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129499099

Moskvitch, K. (2010). Houses May Replace Europe's Largest Collection of                Crops. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-                   environment-10899318.