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Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Docker Container Notes, Random Stuff, and More

- if you've hear a bit about container technology then you're probably wondering a bit about it. That's the point of this point of this post. It's "special but not". It can be replicated in a few hundred lines of code as indicated in the following (these notes are from a long while back/maybe even years? so if they're not entirely up to date please excuse me)
Docker Tutorial - What is Docker & Docker Containers, Images, etc
Learn Docker in 12 Minutes
- if you dig around then you'll realise that higher lever languages can implement it in an even small number of lines of code. It's a good/interesting read if you're curious
lizzie container linux
Linux Container Internals
Linux containers in 500 lines of code
- you can build, run images locally or download from remote repositories. Since I seem to have occasional connectivity issues I've tried using proxies as well as alternate mirrors. Note, iptraf is an easier way to track progress when dealing with network issues but something like wirehsark is needed to track exactly where/what the connection drop out may be caused by? I have a gut feeling that it may be caused by a specific type of packet?
proxify docker
mirror docker images
sudo vim /etc/docker/daemon.json
{
  "registry-mirrors": ["https://mirror.gcr.io"]
  "debug": true
}
sudo service squid restart
- if you don't realdy know it doesn't really work on 32-bit platforms as yet. Even if you can get it running on 32-bit platforms it's likely to only have limited images available for it to work with. You'll be on your own creating images
docker on x86
- this is the most basic version of it
hello world docker image
sudo docker run hello-world
- there are obviously lots of templates and examples out there if you look around
debian docker configuration
- if you don't want to create a login you can download the client application via github and/or your local software repository (if relevant)
docker github download
- I've obviously been looking at spiderfoot of late (it's a OSINT security product if you don't know). I tried using it via python python but my local setup is sometimes awkward so decided to switch to a Docker container format instead. If you don't already know spiderfoot and spiderpig have no relation... Note, that you may need to download and install cgroupfs-mount to deal with mounting issues on some systems
docker build -t spiderfoot .
docker run -p 5009:5001 -d spiderfoot
https://github.com/tianon/cgroupfs-mount
cd cgroupfs-mount
sudo ./cgroupfs-mount
- ironically, downloading both docker and spiderfoot is not as straightforward as it may seem. There can be a lot of dependencies depending on your local, setup
- before you start you should probably check that your system fulfil Docker requirements. One interesting thing is that in spite of mentions of 32-bit packages being available support is limited
docker kernel requirements
debian 32bit docker package
sudo docker search i386
sudo docker pull i386/busybox
sudo docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
                            024cc21a7703        About an hour ago   31.97 kB
hello-world         latest              19b3f968b60c        10 days ago         1.84 kB
i386/busybox        latest              a716e59aa377        6 weeks ago         1.102 MB
sudo docker run a716e59aa377
FATA[0001] Error response from daemon: Cannot start container 3cb9841dd899c6dc2c215695c07975bf45c0ee9ab3e29e092acca6197aebac44: [8] System error: pivot_root invalid argument 
- cheatsheets are available all over the place. The problems with a lot of documentation is that it doesn't cover enough of the core architecture for Docker. You need to consult a wide variety of sources to gain a good understanding of it. Most of what I've seen gives you a basic overview only. Your best bet is to read the source code of an alternate version of it (top of this post)
Recap and cheat sheet
## List Docker CLI commands
docker
docker container --help
## Display Docker version and info
docker --version
docker version
docker info
## Execute Docker image
docker run hello-world
## List Docker images
docker image ls
## List Docker containers (running, all, all in quiet mode)
docker container ls
docker container ls --all
docker container ls -aq
https://docs.docker.com/get-started/#recap-and-cheat-sheet
- this is core log file
sudo less /var/log/docker.log 
- simple sample Dockerfile
FROM scratch
COPY /echo /
CMD ["./echo"]
- simple build sample
sudo docker build --tag scratch .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 34.82 kB
Sending build context to Docker daemon 
Step 0 : FROM scratch
 ---> 
Step 1 : COPY /echo /
 ---> b750e76ae4c8
Removing intermediate container 295a02e11a50
Step 2 : CMD ./echo
 ---> Running in 8e62d5ce6709
 ---> 024cc21a7703
Removing intermediate container 8e62d5ce6709
Successfully built 024cc21a7703
- simple examples for the build process. Obviously, once you realise what docker/containerisation actually is you realise simple it is
creating a docker image
create docker image locallly
- clearly 'Dockerfiles' look pretty simple but if your local setup is screwed up things can get pretty hairy pretty quickly. Be prepared for some heavy hacking? Note that in some cases, the error messages can be pretty cryptic. I suspect the following came from trying to run it on a 32-bit platform
sudo docker build -t spiderfoot .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 18.42 MB
Sending build context to Docker daemon 
Step 0 : FROM alpine:3.7
3.7: Pulling from alpine
43957646aca8: Pull complete 
32ad7db8a12e: Pull complete 
Digest: sha256:6df50d972722fafbdc8db14f1062ea201557425202b4792c553f428fe11e1afa
Status: Downloaded newer image for alpine:3.7
 ---> 32ad7db8a12e
Step 1 : ENV SPIDERFOOT_VERSION 2.11.0
 ---> Running in 20bae07e1a5b
 ---> 487a7df8a7a2
Removing intermediate container 20bae07e1a5b
Step 2 : COPY requirements.txt .
 ---> 12d15bb775ca
Removing intermediate container 356886f3d164
Step 3 : RUN apk
 ---> Running in 9103666a686b
INFO[0050] [8] System error: pivot_root invalid argument 
- even with debian:jessie still getting
sudo docker build -t spiderfoot .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 18.14 MB
Sending build context to Docker daemon 
Step 0 : FROM debian:jessie
jessie: Pulling from debian
4d048f4dff67: Pull complete 
fc84940165ce: Pull complete 
Digest: sha256:2c215e695cefc8f3de6a063818458c4ee3f247795fa01ffbf9fe71ced21517f4
Status: Downloaded newer image for debian:jessie
 ---> fc84940165ce
Step 1 : RUN apt-get install -y   swig   --no-install-recommends
 ---> Running in ed2473f05f23
INFO[0519] [8] System error: pivot_root invalid argument 
----------------------------------------
pivot_root fails docker wrong image
----------------------------------------
i586-linux-gnu-gcc -pthread -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O2 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fno-strict-aliasing -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -g -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security -fPIC -DPSUTIL_POSIX=1 -DPSUTIL_VERSION=543 -DPSUTIL_LINUX=1 -I/usr/include/python2.7 -c psutil/_psutil_common.c -o build/temp.linux-i686-2.7/psutil/_psutil_common.o

psutil/_psutil_common.c:9:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory

compilation terminated.

error: command 'i586-linux-gnu-gcc' failed with exit status 1
----------------------------------------
Cleaning up...
Command /usr/bin/python -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-build-cdwF4G/psutil/setup.py';exec(compile(getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-OxmEYZ-record/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-build-cdwF4G/psutil
Storing debug log for failure in /root/.pip/pip.log
pivot_root docker
- management of large numbers of containers can be handled via manager type utilities now. A lot of them say they're 100% fullproof but if you spend enough time around them you also realise that this claim isn't always true
docker swarm
docker swarm alternative to
- if all else fails and you can't get Docker running on your system just download a live 64-bit based Linux distro or else run something via the cloud such as Amazon Web Services or Azure. There are some websites that even offer pure web based simulations scenarios

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Random Quotes:
- It’s something Mr Voigt can relate to, saying the role of a principal has shifted from school leader and mentor to corporate manager.

Most of the paperwork he had to do was “pointless” box-ticking and red tape that offered little-to-no value to the school environment, he said.

“There was a study about how principals spend their time and less than one per cent was talking to teachers about students. That should be the core business of their role.

“For principals, it’s the administrative load they’re expected to carry. The sheer volume of paperwork is absolutely enormous. What you’re expected to deal with and the hours you’re expected to work are huge.

“They’re sitting in their offices forced to write reports and do admin when they should be helping teachers to become better teachers.”

Another factor that current and former teachers say is making the job a nightmare is the attitude of parents, which seems to have shifted dramatically in the past decade.

Mr Voigt said the “blame game” was becoming worse, with mums and dads expecting schools to be a single solution for every requirement.

“We wind up crowding schools with nonsense. Instead of teaching kids how to learn and to be good citizens, we teach them how to drive, how to eat, how to have manners … all of those things that take up precious time.”
- Geoff Ogilvy once said something to me that a lot of golfers would understand: “When you’re playing well, you can’t remember how you could ever shoot a bad score over par. But when you play poorly, you can’t remember how you ever played well and shot the scores you used to.” The second part of that comment is what has haunted me for the past two years.
- Thucydides (/θjuːˈsɪdɪdiːz/; Greek: Θουκυδίδης Thoukydídēs [tʰuːkydídɛːs]; c.  460 – c.  400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work.[1][2][3]

He also has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by and constructed upon the emotions of fear and self-interest.[4] His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide.[5] The Melian dialogue is regarded as a seminal work of international relations theory, while his version of Pericles' Funeral Oration is widely studied by political theorists, historians, and students of the classics.

More generally, Thucydides developed an understanding of human nature to explain behaviour in such crises as plagues, massacres, and civil war.
- “In dogs there's something called trigger stacking. A dog may have a moderate or low-level response to any one particular thing, but if you build up the stress of multiple things that can result in a dog reacting quite strongly, even if none of the individual triggers would do it.

“Just like you and I, you wake up late, and then the hot water heater is broken, and then you go out to your car and it won't start so you have to call a cab, things stack up and by the time you get to work you snap uncharacteristically. I think it's the case that the dog got so ramped up, so focused, that this was an individual dog that didn't have the coping mechanisms for severe stress, maybe due to the violent assaults in the past.

“It could have been in this particular case a perfect storm of factors came together at that particular time. Had the gentleman not been wearing a headlamp, or had he not had a bicycle, or maybe even had it not been storming outside. Maybe if it had been 3 in the afternoon instead of the morning, who knows? Somewhere it went off the rails where Tania was trying to restrain the dog.”

Today, few hints of the tragedy remain. The public housing property has since been demolished, replaced with a neat new brick home with colourful bunting around the front yard, waiting to welcome its new tenants.

Crosby understands that his and the coroner’s findings may be difficult for some worried members of the Canberra community to accept.

“I've seen an awful lot, more than just about anyone else, but they are very unusual occurrences. In all the cases I've been involved in there have been an accumulation of factors and if anything had gone differently, it probably wouldn't have turned out that way.

“We just have to accept that your normal pet dog doesn't kill somebody.”
- A Zambian firm said on Wednesday it had suspended production of an energy drink after a consumer in Uganda complained of a prolonged erection, with tests suggesting it contained the active ingredient of Viagra.

SX Energy Natural Power drink, produced by Revin Zambia, is exported around the region including to Uganda, where the consumer also complained of profuse sweating.

Revin Zambia general manager Vikas Kapoor said his company stopped making the drink on Tuesday while launching an internal investigation.

"We have allowed the government or any of its agencies to conduct their own investigations as well, but as far as we know, the drink does not contain any drug," he told AFP.

He said his company, based in the city of Ndola north of the Zambian capital Lusaka, has made the energy drink since last year.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Zambia (PSZ) said tests shared by the Uganda National Drug Authority had revealed the presence of sildenafil citrate - a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and dispensed under the brand name Viagra.

The PSZ said the label claims that the drink "contains natural extracts of ginger and tongkat ali, a well-known aphrodisiac, and testosterone booster as the main ingredients".

It called on Zambians to avoid the drink.

Ugandan authorities confirmed they are seizing imported supplies.

"We received notification from [the Ugandan] National Drug Authority that the energy drink was adulterated and our teams are impounding it," Uganda's bureau of standards spokesman Godwin Muhwezi told AFP.
- So far, at least nine countries have cut off their national internet connections to assert political control at critical moments. A countersecurity fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, Justin Sherman, in a piece last month called "Here Come the Internet Blackouts", listed Egypt, Libya, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sierra Leone and Syria as countries that had deliberately shut down the internet in recent years to contain people's protest, and, so far this year, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo have done the same.

Much smarter are the countries that have managed to retain political control of the web without resorting to the crude tactic of disconnecting it. The standout success is China. China long ago figured out how to plunder the web globally while walling itself off from attack locally. The West's tech geniuses always said that this was impossible, that the web was beyond the control of any government, that censorship in the age of the internet was quixotically pathetic. But the Great Firewall of China has proved them wrong.

Beijing not only wants to keep sovereign control of its web and its people, it also wants to be able to survive a US internet embargo, the equivalent of the old-style trade embargo.  Last week Russia's Duma gave initial approval to a bill that would allow Moscow to do the same.
at
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Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Data Mining/Big Data/Automated Analysis Notes, Random Stuff, and More

- as indicated in my last post I've been semi-interested in the data mining, pattern recognition, search technology, language analysis, automated research/analysis, etc... fields for a while now. One of the reasons why I've been interested in it of late is that after some thought experiments I realise finding cause and effect relationships may be easier then some people think (which should make the process of scientific progress faster and easier and also inferring useful/useless avenues for possible research). I just wonder whether technology has taken the right direction though? (these notes are from a long while back/maybe even years? so if they're not entirely up to date please excuse me)
- currently this is the type of stuff that you'll get in the commercial world. It's frustrating to deal with though because it doesn't really do anything with the data. It points out data correlations but can't give you useful insights. The irony is that a lot commercial stuff often has roots in the Free and Open Source (FOSS) world
- these are an example of some of the current medical search engines currently available. Note that many of them use Google or another well known search engine as their backend. They're only semi-useful though because they don't really interpret the data. I'm obviously trying to prototype a concept that has more utility?
medical search engine
- you'll need to scrape content from somewhere. You can use normal web pages, news aggregators, or else download free books or journals. Even if you try to avoid commercial stuff I think you'd still get useful data or information? If you to experiment in this area,  you can use some of the crawler code on my website as a basis for your work. Normally, I would release some of the source code of my own personal prototype at this stage but this feels it could end up like a really complex project? The problems that you face seem to scale up very quickly based on the initial work that I've done thus far. At it's core I've been using concepts from existing proprietary and FOSS search engines but also some of my own ideas obviously as well
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2016/01/anonymous-group-random-thoughts-and-more.html
https://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2018/09/seek-email-crawler-random-stuff-and-more.html
https://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2018/05/book-downloader-script-random-stuff-and.html
https://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2018/02/email-address-harvesting-script-random.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
google 200 factors
open source search engine
- if you're just looking for pure pattern finding software then there's a lot of options ouf there. The biggest problem is that even if they are FOSS they are often clumsy and difficult to use. That said there are often at least primitive semi-compatible prototypes for a lot of commerical software out there such as SPSS, SAS, MatLab, etc...
pattern recognition open source
weka alternativeto
orange data mining
pattern finding software open source
octave examples
- many people think that NoSQL is a specific type of database. In reality, it can encompass many different types of databases which follow NoSQL principles and philosophies (the reality is that while there is a distinction between standard databases and NoSQL most people won't really have to deal with these intricacies in the real world). Note, that most of them seem to be orientated towards high end enterprise class operations. However, most of them can operate in single node form on your local personal computer
- some of the database options seem to be simple/rudimentary unless you dig further and try to understand why they may be more useful then standard RDBMS
- no doubt come across NoSQL type databases before. In reality, there aren't that many choices. They work off the same core ideas but work with data in roughly the same way
nosql database
- NoSQL and Big Data are often lumped together. You can often find open source versions of everything that you have to pay for in the cloud
big data open source
elasticsearch
route53
lambda open source
- many of these projects are associated with Apache and are built on Java
- getting some of them running can be painfully difficult sometimes. A good example is Elasticsearch. It's not actually packaged properly so whether you're trying to install or remove you're going to have some difficulties
sudo vim /var/lib/dpkg/info/elasticsearch.prerm 
sudo dpkg --purge --force-all elasticsearch
sudo apt-get remove elasticsearch
elasticsearch on debian
- newer versions didn't seem to work but older ones did
- clearly, elasticsearch doesn't work well with systemctl so you have to use an alternative mechanism to start it up
systemctl start elasticsearch
Failed to start elasticsearch.service: Unknown unit: elasticsearch.service
See system logs and 'systemctl status elasticsearch.service' for details.
sudo /etc/init.d/elasticsearch start
[ ok ] Starting Elasticsearch Server:.
- things are obviously running
netstat -nlp | head
(Not all processes could be identified, non-owned process info
 will not be shown, you would have to be root to see it all.)
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name    
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:9200          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:9042          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      26813/java          
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:9300          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:631           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:7000          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      26813/java          
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:40091         0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      26813/java          
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:7199          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      26813/java          
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:5353            0.0.0.0:*                           3548/chromium --sho 
- make sure things are running
wget -qO - 127.0.0.1:9200
{
  "name" : "IvRXV55",
  "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
  "cluster_uuid" : "dojeRjG0Q3WIM80XH3zbLg",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "5.2.0",
    "build_hash" : "24e05b9",
    "build_date" : "2017-01-24T19:52:35.800Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "6.4.0"
  },
  "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}
- need to update your PATH variable
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/
elasticsearch-plugin install discovery-file
elasticsearch plugins
- edit following file for data and log files
/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml
- importing and exporting data is strange because it's so dependent on JSON. Ironically, it's similar across the board with other Big Data tools. The formats seem to make it more difficult/awkward to work with the data sometimes?
dump all files to elasticsearch
mass import files elasticsearch
elasticsearch adding data
- if you honestly can't be bothered getting all of the above up and running the obvious alternative is to get a seperate virtual machine up and running or switch to ready made solutions. Distributions such as TurnKeyLinux are very useful with regards to this (although they are somewhat limited)
https://voidlinux.org/download/
install r debian
https://www.linode.com/docs/development/r/how-to-install-r-on-ubuntu-and-debian/
https://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35841227/install-r-on-debian-8-2-jessie
nosql debian package
https://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nosql.html
https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=mongodb
https://www.hostingadvice.com/blog/nosql-basics-install-mongodb-ubuntu/
hadoop
https://hadoop.apache.org/docs/stable/hadoop-project-dist/hadoop-common/SingleCluster.html
http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/hadoop/common/
http://apache.mirror.amaze.com.au/hadoop/common/
mongodb
https://docs.mongodb.com/
https://www.mongodb.com/download-center?initial=true#community
find trends data set r
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/bpa/vignettes/introduction.html
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45295856/how-to-find-linear-trend-in-r
https://dzone.com/articles/r-cleaning-and-plotting-google
- once you understand how it works you begin to see how useful it may be in other fields
virus sample database
denial of service protection
- you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the stuff out there with regards to instaneous deployment
http://mesos.apache.org/downloads/
- one trend that is interesting for me is the overlap between data mining and artificial intelligence. If you've come from the data and statistical analysis world this will make more sense. Be aware that the AI capability can often be fairly rudimentary. It will help you but it won't do your job for you
live linux big data
https://www.whizlabs.com/blog/big-data-tools/
https://www.datamation.com/applications/hadoop-and-big-data-60-top-open-source-tools-1.html
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/5-data-center-ready-linux-distributions/
http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/biolinux/BigData_Class.html
big data linux distro
https://fossbytes.com/best-linux-distros-for-programming-developers/
https://www.analyticsindiamag.com/10-open-source-data-science-big-data-applications-well-supported-linux/
https://www.quora.com/Which-Linux-distribution-is-most-suitable-for-data-science-big-data-beginners-and-enthusiasts
https://distrowatch.com/
- statistical packages don't really work because they don't pick up patterns. I need something that can recognise patterns and make sense of them
sudo apt-get install littler r-recommended
r analysis file of numbers
exponential functions
- I've been working on/building some automated analysis style software. Even basic iterations of such software take a lot of time to complete due to the amount of data being dealt with. I wonder whether it's possible to get a better gauge of how things are happening across the board for each country and provide some automated guidance? Can you granulate it further and peek into state and municipal level?
https://tradingeconomics.com/syria/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/lithuania/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/estonia/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/egypt/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/hungary/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/congo/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/india/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/philippines/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/senegal/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/tanzania/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/malaysia/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/palestine/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/israel/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/libya/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/mexico/employment-rate
https://tradingeconomics.com/taiwan/employment-rate

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Random Quotes:
- Irans Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the intelligence acquired by its drones in Syria and Iraq has forced the US military to bomb one of its own drones.

That was announced by IRGC Aerospace Commanded Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh in a Thursday ceremony held in Hamadan.

"Seven or eight aerial vehicles [belonging to the US-led coalition] with regular flights in Syria and Iraq were under our [intelligence] control; we could monitor their data, and managed to acquire their first-hand information, Hajizadeh said, highlighting the IRGCs influence in the two Arab states.

According to the top general, one of these drones was once forced to have an emergency landing due to a problem during the flight.

As shown in a drone footage released by the IRGC, the drone was hardly landed in a desert area 10 km from the US base.

However, the Americans did not dare to approach their own drone because of the IRGCs intelligence, and thus bombed it with a jet fighter.

The following footage shows the IRGC drone had full control over the American UAV:
- There are approximately 900,000 sworn officers in the United States. According to some studies –19% of them may have PTSD. Other studies suggest that approximately 34% suffer symptoms associated with PTSD but do not meet the standards for the full diagnosis.
- You stop explaining yourself when you realize people only understand from their level of perception.
— Jim Carrey
- The Iranian Air Force (IAF) has officially unveiled the production line of a domestically-manufactured unmanned combat aerial vehicle named Kaman-12.

The production line was unveiled in a Thursday ceremony attended by Vice-President for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari and Air Force Commander Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh in Tehran.

The aircraft can fly at 200 kilometers per hour for 10 straight hours.

It can use an airstrip as short as 400 meters and covers a 1,000-kilometer combat radius.

The UAV weighs 450 kilograms and can carry a payload as heavy as 100 kilograms.

The combat drone was first unveiled on January 30 during Eqtedar 40 Exhibition at Imam Khomeini Grand Prayer Grounds in Tehran, ahead of the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In the field of unmanned aerial vehicles, Iran is now one of the world’s top four or five countries, and the top drone power in the region, according to IRGC Aerospace Commander Amir-Ali Hajizadeh.

Iran's UAV program has expanded in recent years with more than a dozen models operating for a variety of functions ranging from surveillance to intelligence gathering, carrying bombs and Kamikaze operations.  

They have been playing a significant role in the fight against Takfiri terrorists as well as monitoring US warships in the Persian Gulf. 

Iran currently possesses the biggest collection of captured or downed American and Israeli drones, including the US' MQ1, MQ9, Shadow, ScanEagle, and RQ-170 as well as the Israeli regime's Hermes, Hajizadeh said recently.

New radar, navigation systems unveiled

Separately on Friday, Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base unveiled a new radar system called Nasser-40 and a navigation system called Moein-40.

Designed and manufactured in cooperation with the Iranian Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology, Nasser-40 radar is a passive radar system which can detect various targets, including Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) and cruise missiles, in urban environments.

Nasser-40 is a stealth radar, and thus cannot be spotted by the enemy’s aerial vehicles, according to Fars News Agency.

The Moein-40 navigation system has also been built according to the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and is highly capable of accurately finding the targets and their altitude, and exchanging data with other Iranian radars.

With a range of over 400 kilometers, the navigation system can be used both for commercial and military purposes.

Only eight developed countries in the world have the technical know-how for manufacturing such a navigation system.
- The New York Times ran a story in 2017, which began, "Over the years, Google trained computer systems to keep copyrighted content and pornography off its YouTube service." Obviously those systems are not up to scratch if paedophiles are using YouTube to indulge themselves and exploit children.

Last year, the non-profit Campaign for Accountability exposed the lax policing of Google's ad service by buying divisive ads on the search engine's service using Russian roubles and a Russian IP address.

The British division of the American website Wired also ran a story on the YouTube issues. It said, in part: "Videos of children showing their exposed buttocks, underwear and genitals are racking up millions of views on YouTube — with the site displaying advertising from major cosmetics and car brands alongside the content.

"Comments beneath scores of videos appear to show paedophiles sharing timestamps for parts of the videos where exposed genitals can be seen, or when a child does the splits or lifts up their top to show their nipples...

"The videos are also being monetised by YouTube, including pre-roll adverts from Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Fortnite, Grammarly, L'Oreal, Maybelline, Metro: Exodus, Peloton and SingleMuslims.com. Banner advertising for Google and the World Business Forum also appeared alongside some of the videos."

Given the lax manner in which the parent company Alphabet polices its properties, the ACCC should lead the way by hitting Google really hard and where it hurts. And that's by regulating the algorithms it uses. Nothing else will keep the company in line.
- My Nguyen
1 year ago
I left Saigon in 1975 at the end of the War, having lived in all my childhood and teenage years in a war torn country. It was a country ruled with an iron fist by the dictator Ngo Dinh Diem and later by the military. Both regimes were backed by the USA. American GIs and foreigners were treated like VIPs like local people were nothing second-class citizens.
Everywhere you went, there were armed soldiers ready to fire on people, riot equipped police squads, policemen ready to arrest and beat up on young guys of draft age. At one time, while applying for a photo ID at a police station, I witnessed 3 policemen kicking and beating a civilian to the ground. The poor guy did his best to protect his body from blows while laying on the ground screaming in agony.
The young generation of Vietnamese may not see something like that today, but I have seen a lot of injustice and horrors in the dictatorial and military regime of South Vietnam.
And that was the reason for the founding of the National Liberation Front in 1960 (the Vietcong movement) to expel the Americans and foreigners and to liberate the country.
- In my mind it seems like he views the swing as a puzzle. He says everyone has their own swing with different parts and so while nothing is "wrong" with each individual component it might not fit the rest of the swing or, in the case of my metaphor, a puzzle piece that doesn't fit right. That idea just struck me as a very positive and simple way to look at a swing.

That's basically all I know about him. I know he works with Matt Every and is based out of Florida... I was really posting here to try and learn more about him though.
- Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.
- Tbone - They are the same shaft.  I recently ordered new tour wedges with the zz65 shaft.  They arrived with the zz65 silk screening logo near the tip AND the zz lite shaftband.  I was confused, so I called customer service to find out if I got what I wanted.  I was told that the zz lite and zz65 are the same shaft.  It never hurts to double check.  If you call Ping, I'm sure they'll help.  I have always found them helpfulf if you call with a question. 
- "One of the things I don't want is a player to be on the other side of the world and hit a couple of bad shots, turn around, I'm not there and they think, I'm not going to be able to play well this week.

"I want them to have that self-reliance and presence of mind to objectively step back from what they're doing. 

"In my experience, when they drop off it's not because they've invented some new poor movement. It's because they've regressed into an old pattern. It's a matter of helping them understand that and going through a process where they make that correction." 
- Japan’s first F-35A stealth fighter reportedly made seven emergency landings in the months prior to crashing in the Pacific Ocean last week. The Japanese Air Force started using its fleet of 13 F35As in January. On April 9, the first plane of Mitsubishi assembly crashed. Of the 13 planes provided by the United States to Japan, five have been forced to make emergency landings in seven incidents. The plane that crashed made two of the emergency landings. Final assembly of four of the error reporting planes, including the fighter that went missing, was carried out in Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. The other aircraft was built and assembled in the US. The crashed fighter reportedly had issues with its cooling and navigation systems twice. Japan grounded its fleet of 13 F-35As in the wake of the crash.
- Many protesters are frustrated that the international effort to help fire-damaged Notre Dame Cathedral has eclipsed the five-month-old yellow vest movement against wealth inequality.

French yellow vest protesters returned to the streets today to remind the government that rebuilding the fire-ravaged monument isn't the only problem the nation needs to solve.

Many protesters were deeply saddened by the fire at a national monument.

But many are angry at the $1 billion in Notre Dame donations that poured in from tycoons while their own demands remain largely unmet and they struggle to make ends meet.
- A senior Huawei official says US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may soon declare a ban on trouser belts being made in China, claiming they are a risk to US national security as armies cannot fight with trousers round their ankles.

John Suffolk, a former top British civil servant and now chief security officer at the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant, made the remarks at the company's 16th annual global analyst summit which kicked off on Tuesday, The Guardian reported.

Suffolk did not mince his words at any stage of his speech, saying he had realised some time ago that he was never going to convince the Americans that Huawei technology is not accessible to the Chinese Government.

“Whether it is because they genuinely believe Huawei are terrible people or China is a terrible country, [I] don’t know,” he said. “All we can do is say: ‘Guys, if you want to come and look, come and look. If you want to come and test, come and test. If you want to do verification, you are more than welcome to'. We don’t believe there is much more we can do.”

For nearly two years, the US has been pushing countries it considers allies to avoid using equipment from Chinese companies, Huawei foremost, in 5G networks. But the US has produced no proof to back up its claims that these products could be used to spy for China.
Only Australia and New Zealand have fallen in line with Washington's dictates, but Wellington has indicated that the initial refusal for telco Spark to use Huawei gear is not the end of the matter. That stance was reiterated by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a one-day China visit in April. Huawei sued the US on 7 March, seeking to be reinstated as a telco supplier in the country.

Suffolk said the American Government had failed so far to produce any evidence to back up its claims that Huawei was a conduit for China to spy on foreign countries. Claims that Huawei's 5G technology could be broken into by Chinese spies to listen in on phone calls or to crash vehicles connected through an Internet of Things network were dismissed as fanciful.

The US "cannot keep saying [Huawei] has got some dodgy technology. [NSA whistleblower Edward] Snowden revealed all kind of things going on with American technology,” he said. “No one has revealed anything that we do [is bad].

“They are belittling national security – national security is important and they shouldn’t belittle it. They should face up to the reality that technology is complicated and should work together to solve the problems that we can.”

Pompeo has been the most active of the American officials who are trying to rally other countries to ban Huawei.

“China is just another country: it has a different value system, a different political system, but they’re just people like you or I. What is the real fear? Is it because it’s China or because the technology is better?" Suffolk asked.

“The reality is we’re a Chinese company, our founder is Chinese – that’s not his fault. We’re very proud to be a Chinese company, but being a Chinese company means that in some quarters the spotlight will always be on you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

“America says it wants open competition but then says: ‘Huawei, you can’t work in America – you’re banned'. My belief is America should face up to competition, it should face up to competition because American citizens will benefit.”
- "...Lt. Col. Scott Gunn, an F-35A pilot based at Eglin, who told the training anecdote. Eglin isn’t some backwater base with inadequate equipment. It’s the crown jewel of Air Force test programs, Gunn said, “but a lot of those precious
resources are just not quite enough for what you need in fifth gen.

“A lot of the simulated threat surface-to-air emitters that we have are basically a little radar dish on a stick that’s attached to a computer,” which tells the radar what signals to emit to replicate a threat, Gunn said. “Well, the F-35 sees that and says, ‘nope, that’s not the threat.’ So it ignores it.

“We’re finding we almost have to dumb down the system a little bit to say, ‘all right, well, it’s not exactly the threat, but it’s good enough to display it,'” Gunn said. “If you don’t have something that’s really replicating the threat, you’re not getting the training you need, because the airplane is too smart.”..
- The spit that infected the cop with gonorrhoea bacteria took place while the arrested offender was in a holding cell in the Dutch city of Leiden, in the province of South Holland, the Daily Star reported on Saturday.

An STD afflicted thug spat in a police officer's face, resulting in the cop catching gonorrhoea and being blinded in one eye, the media outlet said, adding that the infected policeman retired after the incident. 

During the court hearing, the officer called the incident "very bizarre", noting that, as a result, he couldn't see anything from his right eye.

Commenting on his experience after being blinded, he said: "It is just like I'm shrouded in fog".
- US President Donald Trump has warned the International Criminal Court (ICC) of "swift and vigorous response" if the Hague-based tribunal investigates Americans and Israelis for war crimes.

Trump issued the warning on Friday after ICC judges rejected a request by the court's prosecutor to probe atrocities committed by US forces in Afghanistan.

Trump hailed the unusual ruling as a "major international victory," claiming that the Americans and Israelis should be immune from ICC prosecution.

"Since the creation of the ICC, the United States has consistently declined to join the court because of its broad, unaccountable prosecutorial powers; the threat it poses to American national sovereignty; and other deficiencies that render it illegitimate," he said.

"Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response," he added.

Amnesty International denounced the ICC's decision as a "shocking abandonment of victims" that would "weaken the court's already questionable credibility."

Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International, stressed that the ruling would be seen as a "craven capitulation to Washington's bullying."

Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US would withdraw or revoke visas for ICC staff who prosecute American troops in Afghanistan as well as their allied personnel, including Israelis.

He also warned about potential economic sanctions "if the ICC does not change its course."

US National Security Adviser John Bolton had also threatened to revoke the visas of ICC personnel if the court pursued charges against members of the US military over crimes in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the US revoked ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's visa as part of a crackdown on the ICC.

The ICC has been examining abuses committed by all parties in the Afghan war for more than a decade.

In November 2017, Bensouda sought authorization to open an inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, including in states where the CIA held prisoners.

The ICC is also investigating Israeli atrocities in the West Bank and Gaza, including the demolition of Palestinian property and eviction of the Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds. 

Neither the US nor Israel are ICC members.
- “There’s more to that Tiger hole-out than you probably know. After Tiger inspected the green and was walking back to his ball, he pointed out an old ball mark on the green. It was the size of a dime, almost fully healed, practically invisible. He said, ‘You think if I hit that spot, it will take the slope without going into the bunker?’ … I told him I liked that play. He then hit that old ball mark exactly, from 20 feet away from a tough lie. That the ball went in the hole was sort of a miracle, but hitting the old ball mark on the fly was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.”
- The arrest comes months after Yetman turned himself in to the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office following an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of animals. Officials said they discovered electronic evidence showing Yetman’s alleged bestiality with a retired police dog.

He was charged with 20 felony counts of performing sexual acts with an animal and 24 counts of filming the acts.
- But they offered this advice: "In this scenario, where the DNS servers are manipulated, it’s strongly recommended to use public DNS servers such as Google DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) or CloudFlare and APNIC DNS servers (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1). It’s also recommended to use VPN connections without a third-party DNS."
- In short, Huawei is just another oversized company that is trying to dominate a certain sector. The Americans are afraid of Chinese dominance in any sector and will use any means, fair or foul — mostly foul in this case — to prevent this. And in this endeavour, they rope in supine allies like Australia to take out the garbage.

The Australian market is of no importance to Huawei – and if the company's officials don't say it out straight, they are just being diplomatic in order to continue doing business here. One of the rotating chairmen of Huawei, Eric Xu, put it best, when he said during an interview: "China Mobile Guangzhou did not choose Huawei's 4G equipment, even though Guangzhou city is so close to our headquarters in Shenzhen. So I think this is quite normal. The market size of Australia is even smaller than China Mobile Guangzhou. The market size of New Zealand is even smaller than Yiyang, a small city in China which is my hometown.

"Our equipment is not used by China Mobile Guangzhou, so I think it's quite okay that we are not chosen in certain countries. We have limited capacity. Certainly, we cannot serve all customers in all the countries. And certainly we cannot dominate the entire market. Even in (some) markets that are very close to our headquarters in Shenzhen, our equipment is not used. This is really normal in our industry. Rather, we would remain focused on serving the countries and customers that are willing to work with Huawei."

That's a perfectly rational take on the situation, but one that many emotional Australian commentators, who rank their country as being next to the US in importance, would find difficult to stomach.

Huawei has no need to keep drilling home the point that its 5G equipment is the best and also the cheapest. That has been acknowledged in much bigger markets and by people who say it grudgingly, through clenched teeth. If Australia does not want to use the best product — and that is not surprising given the multi-technology mix which was chosen for the NBN — let the Australian Government rot in a mess of its own making.

There are many other countries out there which would like to have a good 5G network in place. Let Huawei look in those directions. As the good book says, one should not cast pearls before swine.
https://www.itwire.com/open-sauce/unsolicited-advice-to-huawei-let-australia-stew-in-its-own-juice.html
General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that Pentagon officials decided to buy the F-15X partly because it's "slightly less expensive for procurement than the F-35, but it's more than 50 percent cheaper to operate over time and it has twice as many hours in terms of how long it lasts."
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