Obligitory opening post to start the major flame/anti-flame thread. So the topic is:
Why the hell would slashdot post something that seems pretty darn illegal on the front of their site? If it's not illegal, it's just plain irresponsible. I recognize that the folks who run Slashdot are often characterized as kids with no journalistic integrity, but come on...
Since I submitted this story to/., I bite the flamebait.
Personally I have no clear opinions on the Calipari case, because in this cases all information that slips to civilians is of course filtered and in the best case only a pale approximation of the truth. There is too much truly classified information about this, like about anything relating to a war. Truth will perhaps eventually arise, but it's matter of years.
About illegality/irresponsability, well, you have to question not me nor CmdrTaco integrity, but the journalistic integrity of all major Italian media. All sites of prominent Italian newspapers and even Italian national television broadcast service are highlighting this scoop with great fanfare. The link to the unclassified document comes from and is hosted by the Corriere della Sera website, the major Italian newspaper.
So it's plain silly to think/. should have silenced this. If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else to post this.
Moreover someone already pointed out in comments that is better for people that may risk something by this disclosure to know they risk something. The vulnerability was there. It should have been an advantage for someone if it was secret. Being that much publicized, such info it is not an advantage for any enemy more.
I don't think it could be construed as anything but a violation of the DMCA. The government distributed all the information in an unclassified document.
"Ineffective protection" is a viable defense against the DMCA's anti-copy protection provision. Since you can crack the PDF in question with a "Save As..." type.txt, the protection would certainly not be construed as "effective" by a jury.
What they don't want you to know was that the car was on a secure road, where there should not have been a checkpoint at all, since Iraqi resistance forces have no way to access this road. It's a highly secure road. The Italians had no reason to expect a "checkpoint" on this road; the fact that they there was one is highly suspicious, to say the least. Wake up and smell the coffee, people!
Irresponsible to post this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the hell would slashdot post something that seems pretty darn illegal on the front of their site?
If it's not illegal, it's just plain irresponsible. I recognize that the folks who run Slashdot are often characterized as kids with no journalistic integrity, but come on...
Re:Irresponsible to post this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I submitted this story to /., I bite the flamebait.
Personally I have no clear opinions on the Calipari case, because in this cases all information that slips to civilians is of course filtered and in the best case only a pale approximation of the truth. There is too much truly classified information about this, like about anything relating to a war. Truth will perhaps eventually arise, but it's matter of years.
About illegality/irresponsability, well, you have to question not me nor CmdrTaco integrity, but the journalistic integrity of all major Italian media. All sites of prominent Italian newspapers and even Italian national television broadcast service are highlighting this scoop with great fanfare. The link to the unclassified document comes from and is hosted by the Corriere della Sera website, the major Italian newspaper.
So it's plain silly to think /. should have silenced this. If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else to post this.
Moreover someone already pointed out in comments that is better for people that may risk something by this disclosure to know they risk something. The vulnerability was there. It should have been an advantage for someone if it was secret. Being that much publicized, such info it is not an advantage for any enemy more.
Re:Irresponsible to post this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Irresponsible to post this. (Score:2)
Re:Irresponsible to post this. (Score:2)
We aren't being told anything close to the truth. (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1957 [antiwar.com]