Times/@YouGov poll finds 43% (+23) of voters support Sending ground troops to fight Isis 37% (-21) disapproved. Changes since summer 14
I'm surprised - personally I've not come across a single person who has become more likely even to support air strikes. Maybe I need to widen my social circles.
My scientific sample of a representative group, i.e. the blokes up the pub at lunch time, revealed a 100% support of "nuking the buggers back to the stone age" but supplementary questions also showed that "Britain's half a dozen clapped out Tornadoes were not doing any good now so what would be the point of getting them to bomb targets in Syria too" was a majority viewpoint by a big margin. Overall the motion that "This house believes 1) that we should leave it to that bastard Putin as he at least has the balls to get stuck in; and 2) Cameron is a wanker full of piss and wind" was carried unanimously.
Any room for a small one?
Depends Mr. Owls, are you prepared to swear off the demon drink, save for medical reasons? The group at lunchtime was an extraordinary meeting of the Hurstpierpoint and District Gentlemen's Temperance Society.
The Society (of which I happen to be Hon Sec of the outings committee) would like to affiliate to the Band of Hope (which, as I am sure you know, was founded in Leeds) however I understand that there are doctrinal differences concerning the correct interpretation of Chapter 1 verse 23 of St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy.
Mr Llama: a temperance meeting in a pub? Have I perhaps misunderstood what temperance means?
Is not the fact that this discussion, this dispute, this dichotomy, is taking place a good indication of how worthless opinion polls are? I do understand that this discussion is important to betting people, but it does strike me as dangerous for punters to make decisions based on polls.
Polls are inputs, to be considered together with other evidence.
At this point in the electoral cycle, they should be given very low credence.
An interesting and slightly disturbing chat with a colleague at work today. Present in the UK 25 years of Mid East origin, professional and well educated. Naturalised and votes Conservative. The sort of person Daesh would behead without a thought in their country of origin.
Nonetheless could not believe muslims could carry out the attacks in Paris. Somehow it was the Israelis and Americans behind it. No evidence of course, just the knowledge that this was the case.
Pretty astonishing really. Pretty depressing too.
I was speaking with someone who is originally from Paris .
I am not so polite. I tell them why I think they are wrong. And how morally repulsive I think their view is. I don't really care that it's not the done thing. I think it's important to speak out when people talk balls like that.
The view that it's down to French foreign policy or British foreign policy or the US foreign policy or whatever is a very self-centred view, for all its apparent nod to the West being the bad guys. It is saying that the only people who count in the Middle East are Europeans. They are the actors. They are the ones who cause the bad things to happen. The Arabs are just passive victims. Even when they act, they are being manipulated by others - us! Or reacting to us! It's someone burnishing their own self-importance while pretending to be more insightful about the causes but in reality denying the terrorists even the credit (if that's the word) of their own moral agency. They can't even accept that the terrorists chose to do what they did without - subtly - making the Europeans the stars of the show.
Utterly vile.
It is difficult to be quite so forthright with someone that I have to work with on a weekly basis, someone who has excellent professional skills.
I agree though. It does deny the mid east peoples their humanity. Just depicting them as dumb pawns in a bigger game.
Well, quite. Sometimes discretion is the better course of action.
Still I came from a family where we argued about politics and religion and history and families and pretty much every damn thing on a nightly basis, often at volume and generally passionately. When I first encountered opera, it seemed to me like watching my family on stage. A dinner party where people talk about house prices and schools is not just deathly dull, but such a wasted opportunity!!
My family was much the same. Politics, economics, international relations all sorts of things (religion a bit taboo though - my father has always been a militantly anti-clerical atheist).
But letting things stand felt a bit like moral cowardice, and might be interpreted as tacit agreement. Difficult.
Times/@YouGov poll finds 43% (+23) of voters support Sending ground troops to fight Isis 37% (-21) disapproved. Changes since summer 14
I'm surprised - personally I've not come across a single person who has become more likely even to support air strikes. Maybe I need to widen my social circles.
My scientific sample of a representative group, i.e. the blokes up the pub at lunch time, revealed a 100% support of "nuking the buggers back to the stone age" but supplementary questions also showed that "Britain's half a dozen clapped out Tornadoes were not doing any good now so what would be the point of getting them to bomb targets in Syria too" was a majority viewpoint by a big margin. Overall the motion that "This house believes 1) that we should leave it to that bastard Putin as he at least has the balls to get stuck in; and 2) Cameron is a wanker full of piss and wind" was carried unanimously.
Any room for a small one?
Depends Mr. Owls, are you prepared to swear off the demon drink, save for medical reasons? The group at lunchtime was an extraordinary meeting of the Hurstpierpoint and District Gentlemen's Temperance Society.
The Society (of which I happen to be Hon Sec of the outings committee) would like to affiliate to the Band of Hope (which, as I am sure you know, was founded in Leeds) however I understand that there are doctrinal differences concerning the correct interpretation of Chapter 1 verse 23 of St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy.
An interesting and slightly disturbing chat with a colleague at work today. Present in the UK 25 years of Mid East origin, professional and well educated. Naturalised and votes Conservative. The sort of person Daesh would behead without a thought in their country of origin.
Nonetheless could not believe muslims could carry out the attacks in Paris. Somehow it was the Israelis and Americans behind it. No evidence of course, just the knowledge that this was the case.
Pretty astonishing really. Pretty depressing too.
I was speaking with someone who is originally from Paris and they felt that the attacks were solely down to France's foreign policy. Nothing else, just their foreign policy. I really couldn't be bothered to ask if the wholesale slaughter of the Yazidis was also in response to France's foreign policy. I politely listened to what they had to say then excused myself.
I am not so polite. I tel
Utterly vile.
It is difficult to be quite so forthright with someone that I have to work with on a weekly basis, someone who has excellent professional skills.
I agree though. It does deny the mid east peoples their humanity. Just depicting them as dumb pawns in a bigger game.
Well, quite. Sometimes discretion is the better course of action.
Still I came from a family where we argued about politics and religion and history and families and pretty much every damn thing on a nightly basis, often at volume and generally passionately.
By way of contrast, in my family we don't really speak to each other about anything substantive at all, which leads to some awkward moments when things get serious - I had never realised some family members were pretty anti-semitic until out of nowhere some slurs came out while discussing Ed M. Better out than in is probably right, even if only to avoid surprise!
Times/@YouGov poll finds 43% (+23) of voters support Sending ground troops to fight Isis 37% (-21) disapproved. Changes since summer 14
I'm surprised - personally I've not come across a single person who has become more likely even to support air strikes. Maybe I need to widen my social circles.
My scientific sample of a representative group, i.e. the blokes up the pub at lunch time, revealed a 100% support of "nuking the buggers back to the stone age" but supplementary questions also showed that "Britain's half a dozen clapped out Tornadoes were not doing any good now so what would be the point of getting them to bomb targets in Syria too" was a majority viewpoint by a big margin. Overall the motion that "This house believes 1) that we should leave it to that bastard Putin as he at least has the balls to get stuck in; and 2) Cameron is a wanker full of piss and wind" was carried unanimously.
Any room for a small one?
Depends Mr. Owls, are you prepared to swear off the demon drink, save for medical reasons? The group at lunchtime was an extraordinary meeting of the Hurstpierpoint and District Gentlemen's Temperance Society.
The Society (of which I happen to be Hon Sec of the outings committee) would like to affiliate to the Band of Hope (which, as I am sure you know, was founded in Leeds) however I understand that there are doctrinal differences concerning the correct interpretation of Chapter 1 verse 23 of St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy.
Mr Llama: a temperance meeting in a pub? Have I perhaps misunderstood what temperance means?
Hardly a test of one's temperance if there's no booze around to be tempted by.
Times/@YouGov poll finds 43% (+23) of voters support Sending ground troops to fight Isis 37% (-21) disapproved. Changes since summer 14
I'm surprised - personally I've not come across a single person who has become more likely even to support air strikes. Maybe I need to widen my social circles.
My scientific sample of a representative group, i.e. the blokes up the pub at lunch time, revealed a 100% support of "nuking the buggers back to the stone age" but supplementary questions also showed that "Britain's half a dozen clapped out Tornadoes were not doing any good now so what would be the point of getting them to bomb targets in Syria too" was a majority viewpoint by a big margin. Overall the motion that "This house believes 1) that we should leave it to that bastard Putin as he at least has the balls to get stuck in; and 2) Cameron is a wanker full of piss and wind" was carried unanimously.
Any room for a small one?
Depends Mr. Owls, are you prepared to swear off the demon drink, save for medical reasons? The group at lunchtime was an extraordinary meeting of the Hurstpierpoint and District Gentlemen's Temperance Society.
The Society (of which I happen to be Hon Sec of the outings committee) would like to affiliate to the Band of Hope (which, as I am sure you know, was founded in Leeds) however I understand that there are doctrinal differences concerning the correct interpretation of Chapter 1 verse 23 of St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy.
Mr Llama: a temperance meeting in a pub? Have I perhaps misunderstood what temperance means?
I doubt it, Mrs Free. You see, members of the Society are all sworn off the sauce but most of us are richer in years and even the younger ones have some malady or infirmity and we are an essentially Christian organisation. That is why, of course, the Scriptures and especially 1 Timothy 1:23 is so relevant.
Times/@YouGov poll finds 43% (+23) of voters support Sending ground troops to fight Isis 37% (-21) disapproved. Changes since summer 14
I'm surprised - personally I've not come across a single person who has become more likely even to support air strikes. Maybe I need to widen my social circles.
My scientific sample of a representative group, i.e. the blokes up the pub at lunch time, revealed a 100% support of "nuking the buggers back to the stone age" but supplementary questions also showed that "Britain's half a dozen clapped out Tornadoes were not doing any good now so what would be the point of getting them to bomb targets in Syria too" was a majority viewpoint by a big margin. Overall the motion that "This house believes 1) that we should leave it to that bastard Putin as he at least has the balls to get stuck in; and 2) Cameron is a wanker full of piss and wind" was carried unanimously.
Any room for a small one?
Depends Mr. Owls, are you prepared to swear off the demon drink, save for medical reasons? The group at lunchtime was an extraordinary meeting of the Hurstpierpoint and District Gentlemen's Temperance Society.
The Society (of which I happen to be Hon Sec of the outings committee) would like to affiliate to the Band of Hope (which, as I am sure you know, was founded in Leeds) however I understand that there are doctrinal differences concerning the correct interpretation of Chapter 1 verse 23 of St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy.
Mr Llama: a temperance meeting in a pub? Have I perhaps misunderstood what temperance means?
Jesus said when criticised for chatting with tax collectors for the oppressive Romans "It is the sick man that needs the physician"
I am sure HL gave a very good sermon to the drunken heathen, sufficient to save both their souls and their livers.
Are there any other reports apart from Livingstone himself that he is to co chair labour's defence review? I mean, I know this expression is over used, but if true then surely labour have really jumped the shark. Did Corbyn sing the French national anthem BTW? Was it a good game?
"More than half the nation's governors say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states, although the final say on this contentious immigration issue will fall to the federal government.
States protesting the admission of refugees range from Alabama and Georgia, to Texas and Arizona, to Michigan and Illinois, to Maine and New Hampshire. Among these 31 states, all but one have Republican governors."
Is this new weighting or is some of this weighting what existed pre-election? There has been weighting for decades now.
Their note talks about their "newly strengthened adjustment process".
That doesn't mean 100% of the adjustment is new. It could be anything from that to say 90% of the adjustment pre-existed but it's been strengthened by a further 10%
The "neck and neck" was AFTER the sample was weighted. These further adjustments were mostly new, I believe.
Times/@YouGov poll finds 43% (+23) of voters support Sending ground troops to fight Isis 37% (-21) disapproved. Changes since summer 14
I'm surprised - personally I've not come across a single person who has become more likely even to support air strikes. Maybe I need to widen my social circles.
My scientific sample of a representative group, i.e. the blokes up the pub at lunch time, revealed a 100% support of "nuking the buggers back to the stone age" but supplementary questions also showed that "Britain's half a dozen clapped out Tornadoes were not doing any good now so what would be the point of getting them to bomb targets in Syria too" was a majority viewpoint by a big margin. Overall the motion that "This house believes 1) that we should leave it to that bastard Putin as he at least has the balls to get stuck in; and 2) Cameron is a wanker full of piss and wind" was carried unanimously.
Any room for a small one?
Depends Mr. Owls, are you prepared to swear off the demon drink, save for medical reasons? The group at lunchtime was an extraordinary meeting of the Hurstpierpoint and District Gentlemen's Temperance Society.
The Society (of which I happen to be Hon Sec of the outings committee) would like to affiliate to the Band of Hope (which, as I am sure you know, was founded in Leeds) however I understand that there are doctrinal differences concerning the correct interpretation of Chapter 1 verse 23 of St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy.
Mr Llama: a temperance meeting in a pub? Have I perhaps misunderstood what temperance means?
Hardly a test of one's temperance if there's no booze around to be tempted by.
I rather thought that was the point of pubs - having booze around.
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
Times/@YouGov poll finds 43% (+23) of voters support Sending ground troops to fight Isis 37% (-21) disapproved. Changes since summer 14
I'm surprised - personally I've not come across a single person who has become more likely even to support air strikes. Maybe I need to widen my social circles.
My scientific sample of a representative group, i.e. the blokes up the pub at lunch time, revealed a 100% support of "nuking the buggers back to the stone age" but supplementary questions also showed that "Britain's half a dozen clapped out Tornadoes were not doing any good now so what would be the point of getting them to bomb targets in Syria too" was a majority viewpoint by a big margin. Overall the motion that "This house believes 1) that we should leave it to that bastard Putin as he at least has the balls to get stuck in; and 2) Cameron is a wanker full of piss and wind" was carried unanimously.
Any room for a small one?
Depends Mr. Owls, are you prepared to swear off the demon drink, save for medical reasons? The group at lunchtime was an extraordinary meeting of the Hurstpierpoint and District Gentlemen's Temperance Society.
The Society (of which I happen to be Hon Sec of the outings committee) would like to affiliate to the Band of Hope (which, as I am sure you know, was founded in Leeds) however I understand that there are doctrinal differences concerning the correct interpretation of Chapter 1 verse 23 of St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy.
Mr Llama: a temperance meeting in a pub? Have I perhaps misunderstood what temperance means?
Hardly a test of one's temperance if there's no booze around to be tempted by.
I rather thought that was the point of pubs - having booze around.
Exactly - that's why it is perfect for a temperance meet to see who is holding firm.
It's worse than that - it's free licences if there's anyone over 75 in the household.
One Gordon Brown (Lab) was the perpetrator.
The Tories can always abolish it if they think it is wrong !
They have, effectively. The BBC fund the cost. Very public spirited of them to pay for Brown's largesse. The squeeze on the BBC by this govt and the last (all praise the LDs for supporting cuts to the BBC) has been excellent. Arguably the free licence should come in now 10 years after the retirement age starts. But never the less a modest bit of help for poor old and decrepit and mostly alone people. Not paid out of taxation now.
I was speaking with someone who is originally from Paris .
I am not so polite. I tell them why I think they are wrong. And how morally repulsive I think their view is. I don't really care that it's not the done thing. I think it's important to speak out when people talk balls like that.
The view that it's down to French foreign policy or British foreign policy or the US foreign policy or whatever is a very self-centred view, for all its apparent nod to the West being the bad guys. It is saying that the only people who count in the Middle East are Europeans. They are the actors. They are the ones who cause the bad things to happen. The Arabs are just passive victims. Even when they act, they are being manipulated by others - us! Or reacting to us! It's someone burnishing their own self-importance while pretending to be more insightful about the causes but in reality denying the terrorists even the credit (if that's the word) of their own moral agency. They can't even accept that the terrorists chose to do what they did without - subtly - making the Europeans the stars of the show.
Utterly vile.
It is difficult to be quite so forthright with someone that I have to work with on a weekly basis, someone who has excellent professional skills.
I agree though. It does deny the mid east peoples their humanity. Just depicting them as dumb pawns in a bigger game.
Well, quite. Sometimes discretion is the better course of action.
Still I came from a family where we argued about politics and religion and history and families and pretty much every damn thing on a nightly basis, often at volume and generally passionately. When I first encountered opera, it seemed to me like watching my family on stage. A dinner party where people talk about house prices and schools is not just deathly dull, but such a wasted opportunity!!
My family was much the same. Politics, economics, international relations all sorts of things (religion a bit taboo though - my father has always been a militantly anti-clerical atheist).
But letting things stand felt a bit like moral cowardice, and might be interpreted as tacit agreement. Difficult.
Well, both my parents were fiercely Catholic and equally fiercely anti-clerical, my mother especially (and not at all uncommon amongst cradle Catholics). My father generally thought priests were fit only to give out racing tips and if they couldn't do that, he was simply going to treat their sermons as an occasion for a mid-morning nap.
Moral cowardice vs good manners. Tricky. Perhaps one for those Oxbridge entrance exams.
I don't think Cameron is that keen to begin air strikes in Syria whatever it says:
It is the correct policy. The US and the French and now the Russians are bombing the hell out of that place. A few token British tornadoes will not do anything which the others can not.
Any joining in will be "solidarity" only. It doesn't increase capability.
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
It's worse than that - it's free licences if there's anyone over 75 in the household.
One Gordon Brown (Lab) was the perpetrator.
The Tories can always abolish it if they think it is wrong !
They have, effectively. The BBC fund the cost. Very public spirited of them to pay for Brown's largesse. The squeeze on the BBC by this govt and the last (all praise the LDs for supporting cuts to the BBC) has been excellent. Arguably the free licence should come in now 10 years after the retirement age starts. But never the less a modest bit of help for poor old and decrepit and mostly alone people. Not paid out of taxation now.
I wonder how much that saved versus the tax cut given to hedge funds.
It's worse than that - it's free licences if there's anyone over 75 in the household.
One Gordon Brown (Lab) was the perpetrator.
The Tories can always abolish it if they think it is wrong !
They have, effectively. The BBC fund the cost. Very public spirited of them to pay for Brown's largesse. The squeeze on the BBC by this govt and the last (all praise the LDs for supporting cuts to the BBC) has been excellent. Arguably the free licence should come in now 10 years after the retirement age starts. But never the less a modest bit of help for poor old and decrepit and mostly alone people. Not paid out of taxation now.
But there is no cost as such - just a reduced income. It is not as if the BBC are giving £150 away to every person over 75...
It's worse than that - it's free licences if there's anyone over 75 in the household.
One Gordon Brown (Lab) was the perpetrator.
The Tories can always abolish it if they think it is wrong !
They have, effectively. The BBC fund the cost. Very public spirited of them to pay for Brown's largesse. The squeeze on the BBC by this govt and the last (all praise the LDs for supporting cuts to the BBC) has been excellent. Arguably the free licence should come in now 10 years after the retirement age starts. But never the less a modest bit of help for poor old and decrepit and mostly alone people. Not paid out of taxation now.
I wonder how much that saved versus the tax cut given to hedge funds.
Acturarial estimates reckon that the 'tax cut to hedge funds' will add £11,000 to a lifetime average pension pot.
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
I think any self respecting toerag has known about those things for a long time. PGP encryption, which utilises public key encryption and relies on the prime factorisation of very large numbers being impossible for all practical purposes, has been available for download since the very first days of the internet. I remember having conversations about it when I was the Home Office in the early 1990s.
A majority of the public (56%) believe that military strikes against Syria by governments around the world have made the UK less safe. Less than one in five people (18%) believe that such military intervention has made the UK more safe.
An interesting and slightly disturbing chat with a colleague at work today. Present in the UK 25 years of Mid East origin, professional and well educated. Naturalised and votes Conservative. The sort of person Daesh would behead without a thought in their country of origin.
Nonetheless could not believe muslims could carry out the attacks in Paris. Somehow it was the Israelis and Americans behind it. No evidence of course, just the knowledge that this was the case.
Pretty astonishing really. Pretty depressing too.
Since the horrible events in Paris a couple of different Muslims I have spoken to have brought the subject up. One insisted the whole thing was a hoax, invented as an excuse to shut out more Muslim refugees from Europe. The other conceded there had been a small attack that had killed "a handful of people" but was being blown out of all proportion as part of a Jewish plot to take over Mecca(!)
I accept most Muslims in the UK are more sensible and reasonable that those two. But it is still pretty depressing.
Um. It was my idea, actually (I suggested it to Brown). At that time, pensioner poverty was fairly common, and there was a campaign to give them all free TV licences. Brown rejected it as too expensive. So I suggested doing it at age 75, partly as there are a lot fewer 75-year-olds, and partly because by that age (I argued) mobility is oftren weakening so it made sense to ensure that they at least still had a TV to keep a look on the world. He put it in his next Budget.
I agree that in the light of all the largesse showered on pensioners since, it now looks a little dated...
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
Um. It was my idea, actually (I suggested it to Brown). At that time, pensioner poverty was fairly common, and there was a campaign to give them all free TV licences. Brown rejected it as too expensive. So I suggested doing it at age 75, partly as there are a lot fewer 75-year-olds, and partly because by that age (I argued) mobility is oftren weakening so it made sense to ensure that they at least still had a TV to keep a look on the world. He put it in his next Budget.
I agree that in the light of all the largesse showered on pensioners since, it now looks a little dated...
It doesn't look dated at all, Nick. The reasons for its introduction are as valid today as they were then. By getting introduced you did a good job.
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
I think any self respecting toerag has known about those things for a long time. PGP encryption, which utilises public key encryption and relies on the prime factorisation of very large numbers being impossible for all practical purposes, has been available for download since the very first days of the internet. I remember having conversations about it when I was the Home Office in the early 1990s.
The only bit I didn't know was that android is harder to break into than an iphone.
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
I think any self respecting toerag has known about those things for a long time. PGP encryption, which utilises public key encryption and relies on the prime factorisation of very large numbers being impossible for all practical purposes, has been available for download since the very first days of the internet. I remember having conversations about it when I was the Home Office in the early 1990s.
The only bit I didn't know was that android is harder to break into than an iphone.
PGP's creator Phil Zimmerman was released from jail in January. I used it in the mid 90s.
I never knew he was in gaol. What did he get banged up for?
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
If the latest postings on the ISIS media website are anything to go by, it is pretty standing operating procedure for now. I don't think it is a great secret about TOR or Telegram among the public. Even the 15 year old they found in the UK directing an Ozzie to commit terrorist acts only communicated using encrypted means.
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
I think any self respecting toerag has known about those things for a long time. PGP encryption, which utilises public key encryption and relies on the prime factorisation of very large numbers being impossible for all practical purposes, has been available for download since the very first days of the internet. I remember having conversations about it when I was the Home Office in the early 1990s.
The only bit I didn't know was that android is harder to break into than an iphone.
PGP's creator Phil Zimmerman was released from jail in January. I used it in the mid 90s.
I never knew he was in gaol. What did he get banged up for?
He didn't. Watching TV, talking and typing all at once. I don't even recall the name of who got out of jail in January. That's what happens when you don't concentrate!
I did use pgp during the 90s though, mainly for sending and receiving corporate stuff.
I seemed to remember the issues with Zimmerman was PGP was considered too strong of an encryption at the time to be "exported" and he was at one point threatened with proceedings.
An interesting and slightly disturbing chat with a colleague at work today. Present in the UK 25 years of Mid East origin, professional and well educated. Naturalised and votes Conservative. The sort of person Daesh would behead without a thought in their country of origin.
Nonetheless could not believe muslims could carry out the attacks in Paris. Somehow it was the Israelis and Americans behind it. No evidence of course, just the knowledge that this was the case.
Pretty astonishing really. Pretty depressing too.
Since the horrible events in Paris a couple of different Muslims I have spoken to have brought the subject up. One insisted the whole thing was a hoax, invented as an excuse to shut out more Muslim refugees from Europe. The other conceded there had been a small attack that had killed "a handful of people" but was being blown out of all proportion as part of a Jewish plot to take over Mecca(!)
I accept most Muslims in the UK are more sensible and reasonable that those two. But it is still pretty depressing.
Where does your acquaintance think the 132 dead people have gone to? And does your other acquaintance think that 132 people is a handful or does he too think that these deaths have been invented?
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
I think any self respecting toerag has known about those things for a long time. PGP encryption, which utilises public key encryption and relies on the prime factorisation of very large numbers being impossible for all practical purposes, has been available for download since the very first days of the internet. I remember having conversations about it when I was the Home Office in the early 1990s.
The only bit I didn't know was that android is harder to break into than an iphone.
PGP's creator Phil Zimmerman was released from jail in January. I used it in the mid 90s.
I never knew he was in gaol. What did he get banged up for?
He didn't. Watching TV, talking and typing all at once. I don't even recall the name of who got out of jail in January. That's what happens when you don't concentrate!
I did use pgp during the 90s though, mainly for sending and receiving corporate stuff.
OK, thanks for that. I recalled that in the 1990s the Septic government tried to ban PGP, or at least it got very snotty about its export, and I wondered if he had been put away for something related to that (the US legal system does hand down some seriously long sentences, after all).
I do wonder sometimes about how good modern encryption is. As you know, I am sure, just about all internet security is based around the known fact that it is for all practical purposes impossible to find the prime factors of a very large (200 digit or above) number. However it has not yet been proved that no efficient algorithm to do so could exist. However, one of the approaches taken to explore the problem involves elliptic curves.
Now, when Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem, his proof depended in part on original work he had done on elliptic curves. However, it subsequently became known that Wiles's discoveries in this area had already been found by chaps at GCHQ but never published.
So if GCHQ had already cracked elliptic curves, one of the keys to cracking large number factorisation, could they have actually gone the whole way? I don't know and those who do will not say but it is a tantalizing prospect.
I seemed to remember the issues with Zimmerman was PGP was considered too strong of an encryption at the time to be "exported" and he was at one point threatened with proceedings.
I think it was initially an FTP download in the US only, then a friend of his put it on the internet, making it exportable. Uncle Sam felt it was too strong and pounced. Zimmerman has always claimed he had nothing with pgp being on the net.
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
Wrong. The RAW sample showed Con 247 ; Lab 264.
The weighted sample showed Con 220 ; Lab 222.
The final result was after further adjustments
Yes but as made clear in the notes that weighted sample was insufficient as it failed to take account of voters who said they voted Tory in 2015 but were not willing to say who they would vote for in 2020, they were all shy Tories, none will vote for Corbyn and once included you get the more accurate 6% Tory lead. That also mirrors the 5% Tory lead in England in tonight's Survation poll
A belated happy birthday, Cap'n Doc. If you hadn't stopped me from organising it you would have got a nice present from your fellow PBers, so you'll have to make do with cold sound words of congratulations.
How brilliant were the fans at Wembley? Makes you proud to be English.
Hell even I joined in a rendition of La Marseillaise in front of the telly.
"Even"? Isn't it the natural order of things that everybody always sings the national anthems at the start of international football matches, whenever they are broadcast on TV? What would be the point of even having the match at all if not?
A belated happy birthday, Cap'n Doc. If you hadn't stopped me from organising it you would have got a nice present from your fellow PBers, so you'll have to make do with cold sound words of congratulations.
Oh, and welcome to middle age.
Thanks aplenty, Mr Llama - on the plus side, I have been told I look very young for my age
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
Wrong. The RAW sample showed Con 247 ; Lab 264.
The weighted sample showed Con 220 ; Lab 222.
The final result was after further adjustments
Yes but as made clear in the notes that weighted sample was insufficient as it failed to take account of voters who said they voted Tory in 2015 but were not willing to say who they would vote for in 2020, they were all shy Tories, none will vote for Corbyn and once included you get the more accurate 6% Tory lead. That also mirrors the 5% Tory lead in England in tonight's Survation poll
A CNN terror analyst was explaining that they can't track the terrorists because they've gone dark using encryption. The host asked how could this be?
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
The only bit I didn't know was that android is harder to break into than an iphone.
PGP's creator Phil Zimmerman was released from jail in January. I used it in the mid 90s.
I never knew he was in gaol. What did he get banged up for?
He didn't. Watching TV, talking and typing all at once. I don't even recall the name of who got out of jail in January. That's what happens when you don't concentrate!
I did use pgp during the 90s though, mainly for sending and receiving corporate stuff.
OK, thanks for that. I recalled that in the 1990s the Septic government tried to ban PGP, or at least it got very snotty about its export, and I wondered if he had been put away for something related to that (the US legal system does hand down some seriously long sentences, after all).
I do wonder sometimes about how good modern encryption is. As you know, I am sure, just about all internet security is based around the known fact that it is for all practical purposes impossible to find the prime factors of a very large (200 digit or above) number. However it has not yet been proved that no efficient algorithm to do so could exist. However, one of the approaches taken to explore the problem involves elliptic curves.
Now, when Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem, his proof depended in part on original work he had done on elliptic curves. However, it subsequently became known that Wiles's discoveries in this area had already been found by chaps at GCHQ but never published.
So if GCHQ had already cracked elliptic curves, one of the keys to cracking large number factorisation, could they have actually gone the whole way? I don't know and those who do will not say but it is a tantalizing prospect.
Elliptic Curves - PGP's original algorithm was called Bassomatic. This should be called Raquel Welch
Known facts can be dangerous - it was always thought that fingerprints were unique to a person. Then the Madrid train bombing happened. Much to his surprise a US north west lawyer was arrested as his fingerprints were found at the scene. He was able to give a tight alibi, and eventually a terrorist was arrested as his prints matched too.
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
Table 3 does not include the partial refusers who as the notes made clear mainly said they voted Tory in May but were unwilling to say how they would vote at the next election, they were included in Table 4 which gave the more accurate figure
Table 3 also had the Tories ahead in Wales, 41% to 33%, something they have not achieved in a general election since 1918, while Labour led in England 38% to 37% which suggests you take it with a bit of salt. That is especially true since Survation tonight has the Tories ahead in England 38% to Labour's 33%
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
Wrong. The RAW sample showed Con 247 ; Lab 264.
The weighted sample showed Con 220 ; Lab 222.
The final result was after further adjustments
Yes but as made clear in the notes that weighted sample was insufficient as it failed to take account of voters who said they voted Tory in 2015 but were not willing to say who they would vote for in 2020, they were all shy Tories, none will vote for Corbyn and once included you get the more accurate 6% Tory lead. That also mirrors the 5% Tory lead in England in tonight's Survation poll
I confidently predict that pollsters will do as badly in the next elections as they did in the previous one. As former Antifrank noted downthread, they are fighting the last election. since then, corbyn election changes everything and their paltry add one the first number you thought of shy ukip green tory sympathizers correction will not do them much good.
The polls were all off last time from over weighting Labour support.
Looks like they haven't changed much.
Except the ICM poll has been specifically adjusted to take account of the over-weighting of Labour support (hence the change from neck-and-neck to 6% Tory lead).
This is wrong. You have misread what ICM said. They did NOT say that under the old methodology the two parties would have been neck-and-neck. They said the raw sample was neck-and-neck. Not the same thing at all. (Indeed, on the basis of how the raw sample voted, Labour won the last election!)
Table 3 does not include the partial refusers who as the notes made clear mainly said they voted Tory in May but were unwilling to say how they would vote at the next election, they were included in Table 4 which gave the more accurate figure
Table 3 also had the Tories ahead in Wales, 41% to 33%, something they have not achieved in a general election since 1918, while Labour led in England 38% to 37% which suggests you take it with a bit of salt. That is especially true since Survation tonight has the Tories ahead in England 38% to Labour's 33%
It's Table Two wot contains the Raw Data (unadjusted), night.
I see that tomorrow we are to have an announcement on what passes for an energy policy under this government. It would seem that it will introduce even more confusion and be even less sensible than what we have at the moment.
An on that depressing note I am off to beddy-byes.
People making a big deal about the unweighted/I corrected figures are clutching at straws. There is a reason they are corrected.
Jared from Subway used to be a weighted figure. There's a reason he's corrected
Was he a "Hearty Italian"?
Not exactly -
Jared Fogle agreed to plead guilty to one count of possessing or distributing child pornography and another of traveling across state lines to engage in sex with a minor.
The plea deal called for 12 years in the big house.
I see that tomorrow we are to have an announcement on what passes for an energy policy under this government. It would seem that it will introduce even more confusion and be even less sensible than what we have at the moment.
An on that depressing note I am off to beddy-byes.
The biggest issue is not the terrorist using encryption and so on, its the lack of human intelligence. The likes of IS abroad are reasonably well versed in use of comms so as to at least give nothing away when it comes to too much when and where info.
Thats what your informants and eyes-on work achieves. You want know exactly when something is going down? Get informers.
Secondly, I can tell you now that IS in Eastern Syria has a bleed of SIGINT and COMINT and those guys know all too well about how to protect their comms. Yet there are leaks in their methods.
Thirdly, the wonks at GCHQ & NSA can hack, crack and see things that people assume are not crackable. I'm sure they don't have all the answers but there are apparently secure, and well publicised as being secure, applications that are not anything of the sort.
Fourthly, you start with the suspect, i.e. you know who it is you are aiming at. Once you know the suspect, and if the necessary frameworks & resourcing exist, you can get their comms.
AG Loretta Lynch testified today that there is no timetable for finishing the email investigation.
The Clinton Foundation revealed it has amended 4 years of tax returns because it had not fully accounted for its revenue. From 2010 to 2013 - when she was SOS - the foundation received $20 million from foreign governments.
In 2014 when she was preparing her POTUS run, the foundation received $178 million, including $15 million from foreign governments.
The foundation is so opaque that Charity Navigator refuses to rate it.
The biggest issue is not the terrorist using encryption and so on, its the lack of human intelligence. The likes of IS abroad are reasonably well versed in use of comms so as to at least give nothing away when it comes to too much when and where info.
Thats what your informants and eyes-on work achieves. You want know exactly when something is going down? Get informers.
Secondly, I can tell you now that IS in Eastern Syria has a bleed of SIGINT and COMINT and those guys know all too well about how to protect their comms. Yet there are leaks in their methods.
Thirdly, the wonks at GCHQ & NSA can hack, crack and see things that people assume are not crackable. I'm sure they don't have all the answers but there are apparently secure, and well publicised as being secure, applications that are not anything of the sort.
Fourthly, you start with the suspect, i.e. you know who it is you are aiming at. Once you know the suspect, and if the necessary frameworks & resourcing exist, you can get their comms.
Personally I'd look into nobbling a load of phones and computer hardware and dump them in Syria by smuggling them in. These nobbled devices would be easier for security services to hack and/or intercept comms from.
How would I nobble them? It could be done in various ways at different levels: if IS go to the bother of compiling their own OSs (say on Android), it would have to be at a lower level. But would IS go to that level of complexity, especially when security might mean they change phones regularly? And do you trust the people doing the compiling and making any s/w changes?
Going further, you could even have chips whereby some commands are not quite as they are in normal devices. I doubt the Tor-style programs use the on-chip RdRand or IES commands (or ARM equivalents which can be used for encryption), as many distrust those commands for exactly these reasons. But there might be other ways of allowing backdoors in within the hardware.
As an example, you could have a transmitter block that leaks keypresses or other information within a mobile phone signal, which could be picked up at phone base stations.
Spotting some of these techniques would be very difficult, even if you had the kit.
I'm not saying they do this; just that it'd be an interesting way of doing it.
Comments
One Gordon Brown (Lab) was the perpetrator.
At this point in the electoral cycle, they should be given very low credence.
But letting things stand felt a bit like moral cowardice, and might be interpreted as tacit agreement. Difficult.
I am sure HL gave a very good sermon to the drunken heathen, sufficient to save both their souls and their livers.
I mean, I know this expression is over used, but if true then surely labour have really jumped the shark.
Did Corbyn sing the French national anthem BTW?
Was it a good game?
"More than half the nation's governors say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states, although the final say on this contentious immigration issue will fall to the federal government.
States protesting the admission of refugees range from Alabama and Georgia, to Texas and Arizona, to Michigan and Illinois, to Maine and New Hampshire. Among these 31 states, all but one have Republican governors."
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/16/world/paris-attacks-syrian-refugees-backlash/
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2015/11/lads-magazines-fhm-and-zoo-close-doors
Sorry , that should of course be 1 Timothy 5:23 - it is late and I have been avoiding the water this evening.
The weighted sample showed Con 220 ; Lab 222.
The final result was after further adjustments
Good night all.
Arguably the free licence should come in now 10 years after the retirement age starts. But never the less a modest bit of help for poor old and decrepit and mostly alone people. Not paid out of taxation now.
Moral cowardice vs good manners. Tricky. Perhaps one for those Oxbridge entrance exams.
Goodnight.
It is the correct policy. The US and the French and now the Russians are bombing the hell out of that place. A few token British tornadoes will not do anything which the others can not.
Any joining in will be "solidarity" only. It doesn't increase capability.
Quite simple, came the reply: use android and not an iphone (iphones are much easier to break into), and communicate using the telegram app. On a PC use TOR.
I suspect the intel folks would rather that hadn't been made public....
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11547393
Survation Nov 16/17
http://survation.com/new-airstrikes-in-syria-backed-by-15-majority-support-for-uk-parliament-multilateral-approach-latest-eu-referendum-renegotiation-picture/
I accept most Muslims in the UK are more sensible and reasonable that those two. But it is still pretty depressing.
I agree that in the light of all the largesse showered on pensioners since, it now looks a little dated...
I did use pgp during the 90s though, mainly for sending and receiving corporate stuff.
I turned 40 yesterday.
Where does your acquaintance think the 132 dead people have gone to? And does your other acquaintance think that 132 people is a handful or does he too think that these deaths have been invented?
weighted base 1006
Con 247
Lab 264
I do wonder sometimes about how good modern encryption is. As you know, I am sure, just about all internet security is based around the known fact that it is for all practical purposes impossible to find the prime factors of a very large (200 digit or above) number. However it has not yet been proved that no efficient algorithm to do so could exist. However, one of the approaches taken to explore the problem involves elliptic curves.
Now, when Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem, his proof depended in part on original work he had done on elliptic curves. However, it subsequently became known that Wiles's discoveries in this area had already been found by chaps at GCHQ but never published.
So if GCHQ had already cracked elliptic curves, one of the keys to cracking large number factorisation, could they have actually gone the whole way? I don't know and those who do will not say but it is a tantalizing prospect.
Oh, and welcome to middle age.
Known facts can be dangerous - it was always thought that fingerprints were unique to a person. Then the Madrid train bombing happened. Much to his surprise a US north west lawyer was arrested as his fingerprints were found at the scene. He was able to give a tight alibi, and eventually a terrorist was arrested as his prints matched too.
Table 3 also had the Tories ahead in Wales, 41% to 33%, something they have not achieved in a general election since 1918, while Labour led in England 38% to 37% which suggests you take it with a bit of salt. That is especially true since Survation tonight has the Tories ahead in England 38% to Labour's 33%
An on that depressing note I am off to beddy-byes.
Good night all.
Jared Fogle agreed to plead guilty to one count of possessing or distributing child pornography and another of traveling across state lines to engage in sex with a minor.
The plea deal called for 12 years in the big house.
Obama's strategy on ISIS - unweighted and uncorrected and undiscovered
Thats what your informants and eyes-on work achieves. You want know exactly when something is going down? Get informers.
Secondly, I can tell you now that IS in Eastern Syria has a bleed of SIGINT and COMINT and those guys know all too well about how to protect their comms. Yet there are leaks in their methods.
Thirdly, the wonks at GCHQ & NSA can hack, crack and see things that people assume are not crackable. I'm sure they don't have all the answers but there are apparently secure, and well publicised as being secure, applications that are not anything of the sort.
Fourthly, you start with the suspect, i.e. you know who it is you are aiming at. Once you know the suspect, and if the necessary frameworks & resourcing exist, you can get their comms.
Got my hopes up with the photo of his chat with Putin, thought something may have been forthcoming.
AG Loretta Lynch testified today that there is no timetable for finishing the email investigation.
The Clinton Foundation revealed it has amended 4 years of tax returns because it had not fully accounted for its revenue. From 2010 to 2013 - when she was SOS - the foundation received $20 million from foreign governments.
In 2014 when she was preparing her POTUS run, the foundation received $178 million, including $15 million from foreign governments.
The foundation is so opaque that Charity Navigator refuses to rate it.
How would I nobble them? It could be done in various ways at different levels: if IS go to the bother of compiling their own OSs (say on Android), it would have to be at a lower level. But would IS go to that level of complexity, especially when security might mean they change phones regularly? And do you trust the people doing the compiling and making any s/w changes?
Going further, you could even have chips whereby some commands are not quite as they are in normal devices. I doubt the Tor-style programs use the on-chip RdRand or IES commands (or ARM equivalents which can be used for encryption), as many distrust those commands for exactly these reasons. But there might be other ways of allowing backdoors in within the hardware.
As an example, you could have a transmitter block that leaks keypresses or other information within a mobile phone signal, which could be picked up at phone base stations.
Spotting some of these techniques would be very difficult, even if you had the kit.
I'm not saying they do this; just that it'd be an interesting way of doing it.