Agreed! Having his companies intertwined creates all kinds of perverse incentives. For example, SpaceX now has a strong financial interest in that dead bird company being successful, lest they lose $1B that they loaned out:
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I kinda wonder if there are now very serious people from State and Defense Departments, possibly with a couple of spooks from NSA and CIA, meeting with SpaceX managers and having a quiet discussion about the kind of orders from Elon Musk they must not follow, lest the company gets nationalized in a hurry. (I wish!)
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I am thinking this is (one reason) why the USA hasn’t made a formal declaration of war since Dec. 1941 1942 (EDIT: i.e. the other Axis countries). No formal war, then no formal enemy (ETA: what @orenwolf said), & the business of selling armaments etc. can continue unencumbered - unless there are specific sanctions. What he’s done likely violates some sanctions, though that doesn’t rise to the level of treason.
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given the current political context where people do try to distract by “what about…” the clarification is appreciated. i can definitely see that connection about the drones.
his books maybe miss some of the racism driving today’s fascists – but he was very much spot on about the direction white christian nationalism was heading, and the ways technology would enable that
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Hauwei devices are not just backdoored, they didn’t install doors through incompetence. ANY state can walk into their switches/phones/etc.
The report analysed the use of the commonly used and well maintained open
source component OpenSSL. OpenSSL is often security critical and processes
untrusted data from the network and so it is important that the component is kept up
to date. In the first version of the software, there were 70 full copies of 4 different
OpenSSL versions, ranging from 0.9.8 to 1.0.2k (including one from a vendor SDK)
with partial copies of 14 versions, ranging from 0.9.7d to 1.0.2k, those partial copies
numbering 304. Fragments of 10 versions, ranging from 0.9.6 to 1.0.2k, were also
found across the codebase, with these normally being small sets of files that had been
copied to import some particular functionality. There were also a large number of files,
again spread across the codebase, that had started life in the OpenSSL library and
had been modified by Huawei.
In summary:
• There were over 5000 direct invocations of 17 different safe memcpy()-like
functions and over 600 direct invocations of 12 different unsafe memcpy()-like
functions. Approximately 11% of the direct invocations of memcpy()-like
functions are to unsafe variants.
• There were over 1400 direct invocations of 22 different safe strcpy()-like
functions and over 400 direct invocations of 9 different unsafe strcpy()-like
functions. Approximately 22% of the direct invocations of strcpy()-like functions
are to unsafe variants.
• There were over 2000 direct invocations of 17 different safe sprintf()-like
functions and almost 200 direct invocations of 12 different unsafe sprintf()-like
functions. Approximately 9% of the direct invocations of sprintf()-like functions
are to unsafe variants.
3.37 These numbers do not include any indirect invocation, such as through function
pointers and the like. It is worth noting these unsafe functions are present in the binary
and therefore pose real risk.
3.38 Analysis of relevant source code worryingly identified a number pre-processor
directives of the form “#define SAFE_LIBRARY_memcpy(dest, destMax, src, count)
memcpy(dest, src, count)”, which redefine a safe function to an unsafe one, effectively
removing any benefit of the work done to remove the unsafe functions in the source
code. There are also directives which force unsafe use of potentially safe functions,
for example of the form “#define ANOTHER_MEMCPY(dest,src,size)
memcpy_s((dest),(size),(src),(size))”.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/790270/HCSEC_OversightBoardReport-2019.pdf
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This exactly. I know the man is unstable, but Starlink has contracts with the US Air Force and Navy. Not sure how or if they can continue those after this has happened.
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You’re not wrong. But I suspect there was already a significant amount of overlap in that particular Venn diagram before this incident.
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It reminds me of the persistent story of the kill switch installed on French Exocet missiles during the Malvinas War. It is said that the French gave the English government the secret codes to disable the Argentine weapons.
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Have been doubting the wisdom of NASA relying on him for space transport.
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I was watching a video clip yesterday, I think from the Majority Report with Sam Seder, and they showed a clip where Joe Rogan was laughing at the audacity of some millionaire actor complaining about billionaires. And Seder was trying to explain that one of the differences between a millionaire and a billionaire is that a millionaire can’t influence the government and public policy in the same way a billionaire can. This is a really good, real world example of that. Musk literally influenced the progress of a war in Europe. No Hollywood millionaire can do that (unless they get elected President, but that’s a different issue). This is reason #1 maybe why we should not have people this wealthy in the world.
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I’m also failing to see how some of the posts got onto a derail and pearl clutching about China… 
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Not if you consider the theory that the Saudi’s invested so much in Elon’s takeover of the Blue Bird so that one of the principle communication channels used during the Arab Spring events would be destroyed.
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I’ve pointed this out before – the tipping point in the Arab Spring events was when the internet was cut off, and people came out on the streets to make their displeasure known. This was very much the case in Egypt, for example, where that shift in virtual to feets in the streets made all the difference in removing Mubarak.
Other than that, the other reason why I don’t find the Saudi theory that plausible, is that having that access to a network like twitter by dissidents proves to be a useful tool for rooting said dissidents out.
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If I remember correctly, twitter’s texting features were still operational after the internet was cut, and people used it to blast messages. It’s utility in that regard was pretty neat.
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Plus Twitter had already morphed from “the social media tool that helped mobilize the Arab Spring” to “a useful propaganda tool for authoritarians to spread disinformation” by the time Musk took over. I don’t think Trump’s campaign would have done nearly as well without that platform.
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None the less, having less access to organizing online (especially via sharing videos, images, and the like) meant that being out in the streets was the most effective means of expressing dissent. Having a text capability isn’t the same as having a large platform with other kinds of media, I’d argue…
Being out in the streets in the case of Egypt WAS the tipping point, I’d argue. The army made a calculation that it made more sense to get rid of Mubarak as opposed to a violent crackdown on a large swath of the population of Cairo.
That’s another thing - mass media from the start has been just that double-sided. Yes, it can be a means of organizing against oppression, but it has always been effectively used as a means of furthering oppression.
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Yes, I think you are correct. Twitter was a tool in the toolbox, one that got undue attention.
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Sooo is somebody’s government contracts going to suddenly dry up…or no?
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