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Ars longa, vita brevis and all that. People are dispensible; there's plenty more where those 6,000 came from, right? But there just aren't that many canvas-sized comic-book pictures from Roy Lichtenstein, so each one lost is a tragedy, right? Pfeh. (discussion in progress)
These demonstrators, of course, represent the absolute extremely position described in this article as "wishing really hard, perhaps while holding someone's hand, that hatred and violence will disappear from the world." Yeah, I agree that would be a nice thing. I don't believe that it will happen in this particular universe any time soon, though. It is, perhaps, a hopeful sign that they got a few hundred people to come out. Good that there were not any more, but also good that there were not fewer. Our nation is about to embark on a great war, and these idealists won't prevent us from fighting it. But it is important that there be dissenting voices constantly working to prevent us from becoming even more brutal than those we face. Still, it's unfortunate that these people miss the essential truth that peace is a side effect, not a goal. The goal is political settlement; if we achieve that we'll get peace, but there's no way to get peace without it. (discuss)
But never let it be said that Fox lets good taste or previous promises stand in the way of making ratings. This coming Monday they're going to do it again. This time it's Who wants to be a Princess? and 30 young women will "vie for the favor of a dashing young European prince." The supply of dashing young European princes is rather low right now, which leads to the suggestion that this one is another fraud. Expect another scandal. (That's what I get for watching baseball on Fox.) (discuss) Update: You know, I bet they'd have gotten higher ratings and a more interesting selection of contestants if they'd labeled it honestly: "Who wants to be a high priced hooker?"
Steganography does not operate the same way. In steganography there may not even be a key. Once your opponent even detects that a particular form of steganography is in use, it is probably defeated. During WWII, German agents working in the US and elsewhere in the Americas used very sophisticated cameras to take photographs of things like major newspapers and lists of ships and photographically reduced them to pieces of film the size of a pin head. These were fixed but not developed, which meant that they were clear, and were then glued to paper on the periods at the ends of ordinary sentences about meaningless subjects. These were known as microdots. The resulting letters would be mailed to intermediaries in neutral nations (especially Spain and Portugal) who would then forward them to Germany. They would be removed from the letters, developed and then photographically expanded again to recover the original information. This was never completely prevented, but a lot of it was stopped by fairly-routine screening of mail and by examination of suspicious activity to certain mail addresses. One of the things about steganography is that the less information it carries, the more difficult it is to detect. Some reactions to the WTC bombing were legitimate but some have been a bit knee-jerk on both side. An immediate upcry was that people were using images on the web to send steganographic information to their comrades elsewhere in the world -- and it may be true. This article claims to have proved that it isn't happening, but I don't find their proof convincing. The main reason is that they're making some assumptions about how the data is encoded, and more important about the information density, which may not be valid. They provide two example pictures one of which apparently contains no secret information, while the other contains the first chapter of a classic book, in order to show that to the naked eye there is no apparent difference. That part's fine; there is no question that what they describe can be done. But I question whether they are capable of finding whether someone else has actually been doing what they say; I don't believe in their means of detection. Their statistical approach (an analysis of the amount of redundancy in the images) detects the difference in their synthetic exmple, but the second image carries a few kilobytes of hidden data. I question whether an image carrying fifty bytes of hidden data (in a 300K file) would be statistically significantly enough different to stand out from the background using their approach to analysis. Equally, I find their claim to have used a dictionary attack on a large number of images suspect, because it assumes they know how the information was encoded. The difficulty is that it is far easier to find the data in a modified image if you have the original to compare it against, such as in their synthetic example. Clearly the steganographically modified image will have lower redundancy. But like so many other things, the amount of redundancy in a population of JPG files will tend to land on a bell curve. Their screening algorithm calculates the redundancy ("entropy", a concept from Information Theory) and looks for images which are stastically abnormal. Implicitly they assume that an image whose redundancy lands in the normal range hasn't been tampered with. To go outside the normal range, a substantial amount of extra information would have to be added, and there's no guarantee that those hiding the data actually would put that much in each one -- why not spread it out over a few dozen pictures and put less information in each one? A picture which originally would have landed on the low-side of the normal zone could be specially chosen for that very reason, and only have enough additional information added to it to move it to the high side while still remaining within the normal range. Such an approach could not be detected by their sieve because it would not look statistically anomalous; it would not stand out because it would have the same degree of redundancy as numerous legitimate images which were not carrying secret information. The likelihood is that the Internet is indeed one of many ways in which surreptitious communication takes place among bad guys. I have no doubt that drug smugglers have been using it for years, for example. But the whole point of steganography in a medium as rich as this one is that there are just too many places to hide. This study doesn't even convincingly prove that there are no messages in JPG files posted to eBay (which is all they looked at); and it could have been JPG files on porn groups, or it could have been nested data in HTML files, or images on web pages, or it could have been nearly anywhere. This is a case where the needle is very small and the haystack is immense, and the only way to destroy the needle is to burn the haystack, which would cause even more problems than it cures. (Hay, after all, is a very useful commodity.) We simply have to accept that from now on anyone in the world will be able to communicate with anyone else without interception if they're clever, and go from there. Modern telecommunications has changed a lot of rules, and this is one of them. (discuss)
This morning I went there to get some coffee and, blessedly, he wasn't there in his usual spot. But it turned out he was ahead of me in line, and while I stood there waiting he came back with his coffee and noticed that someone was sitting in his usual spot. So he asked a woman with a baby to move so he could sit down. She had been sitting on one side of his usual table and her baby (maybe 18 months) was sitting on the other side playing with a typical baby toy on the table. There were other things of hers on the table and she had a baby carriage; moving was going to be a hassle. And he had the GALL to ask her to do it. I have been putting up with him silently for two years and today seeing that I boiled over. I stalked up to him and got in his face and said "Who the fuck do you think you are? Do you think you own this store?" Then I had to leave. If I'd stay there I would have beaten the crap out of him. I have never in my life seen an able-bodied man ask a woman with a baby to move so he could sit where she was. The manager wasn't there this morning but next time I see him I'm going to have a long talk with him about this. I suspect this is not the kind of thing he will want to have happening in his store. I almost wish this nation didn't have laws against assault; taking out a miserable scum ought to be legal justification for that kind of thing. (Now you know what it takes in person to make me boil over. I haven't been this angry at a specific person in years.) (discuss)
Update: There was a struggle in the cockpit. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I read this.
If we decide to start doing scouting in a big way, it won't be with easily-shot-down drones. We'll be using Wild Weasels or U2's. Wild Weasels fly low but they don't fly straight; they're heavily armed and can shoot back; they carry ECM and flares and a lot of other nasty stuff. The U2 flies at extremely high altitudes and can only be shot down with very large SAMs (and not even very easily with those). And there may be a wild card. Remember how the US suddenly popped up with the F-117A stealth bomber for the Gulf War? Out of nowhere, we just happened to have a full squadron of these babies ready to go. It's been speculated for a long time now that the reason the US retired the SR-71 Blackbird spy planes about ten years ago was that they actually had something better. I think this is likely, and if so this would be the time to use it. (discussion in progress) Update 20010923: The US confirms that it has lost a UAV.
Then there was an AOL advertisement which kept putting a huge text banner up (they know about people like me with mute buttons) saying "1000 free hours!". Finally one of them had, at the bottom in fine print, "over 45 days". Hmm, is that so? In other words, any of those hours still remaining are lost after 45 days. To use a thousand hours over 45 days you'd have to be online more than 22 hours per day. Again, it's almost deceptive advertising. And then there was a closeup of a poster at the ballgame: it was an American flag and under it were the words: "These colors don't run." Damned straight. At least there's something honest on TV. (discussion in progress)
First, she uses a false conundrum to justify eliminating Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. The logic goes like this: one prosecutor she spoke to said that he'd provide discovery to criminal defendants (i.e. let them know what evidence was going to be presented against them) if they'd depose;and since she thinks that discovery is important then we just need to revoke the Fifth Amendment and then everything will be peachy. But the two issues are not really linked this way just because she quoted one prosecutor grumbling about it. Less obvious but no less wrong is her contention that the US public has a right to accurate press coverage of military operations. She wants reporters to have the right to demand to be attached to any military unit they want and to report anything they wish about it. I can see it now (or then): "So, Dan, we're out here along the border with Iraq preparing a surprise attack which they tell me will start tomorrow morning at 6:00." "Thanks, Ben, for that report. Is there any indication yet that the Iraqis know where you are?" "Dan, we haven't seen any sign of them." "OK, next on CBS news..." and then the Gulf War "Left Hook" fails when the Iraqi leadership learns about the "sneak attack" on American television. Yeah, right. The military
Notice that the first two clauses discuss "citizens" but the last two discuss "persons". The distinction is clear and deliberate: due process applies to citizens and non-citizens alike. There is strong court precedent that this applies equally to the US itself (not just to the "States"). As such, sections 202 and 203 of this proposed law are blatantly unconstitutional. There are a lot of other things wrong with this; no wonder
Engineers know that in critical systems redundancy is not a luxury. That is also the case in political control systems. Shortly after last week's bombing, Vice President Cheney vanished from the public eye. His location is not now being publicized, and we can expect that to continue for the forseeable future. Whereever he is, he has with him a core group of advisers who amount to a shadow government. Our enemies may have access now or soon to nuclear weapons, and if they managed to use one on Washington DC, they'd take out not just the President and all of his advisers, but also Congress and the Supreme Court. But as long as Cheney and his advisors are still alive, then we would still have a government, and this nation would be able to survive. There would still be continuity; there would be an orderly transition of power. Cheney would be sworn in as President and would begin the long slow job of holding elections and rebuilding the essential bureaucracy, while continuing to fight the war. I don't know where Dick Cheney is, and I neither need nor want to know. (discuss) Update: You know, we lucked out: Cheney is a good man. We could have done a lot worse than to have him as our VP during this crisis -- it could have been Dan Quayle.
Update: You know, when a proposal manages to unite the Gun Owners of America, the Eagle Forum, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the NAACP in opposition to it, it's probably a really terrible idea.
One of the most piercing of the articles talks about the life cycle of governmental cabinets. The problem is that there is a general tendency for them to grow because there is prestige and power associated with membership, but as they do so they also become inefficient. At a certain point, they cease to matter and a new body will form which contains the most important members of the old one, which is smaller and which takes over most of its functions. He gives as a historical example various cabinets in the government of Great Britain, and documents how this process has happened fully six times. His analysis places the point of inefficiency somewhere near 14 members, but the practical way of telling that a cabinet has ceased to matter is when people start getting put onto it as a means of affirming how important they are, for the prestige alone, at which point the size of the body begins to grow rapidly. He also discusses the US cabinet and mentions that (at the time) it remained an important body (with some 11 members) but that it was perilously close to ceasing to matter. Based on his principles, I date the death of the US cabinet to the 1980's, at which point it got replaced by the National Security Council as the critical governing body of the executive branch. The Cabinet still meets but it no longer actually does anything important; the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense are in the NSC (which, with six permanent members is still capable of functioning) but such less important positions as Labor, Commerce and Interior are only invited to attend when they're actually needed. The beginning of the end for the cabinet as a meaningful body was when the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was divided into two (creating a new cabinet secretary) by separating Education out "to prove our commitment to Education". That was, IIRC, the first propagandistic (as opposed to functional) addition to the cabinet. The Cabinet was certifiably dead when the head of the Veterans Administration and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency became members. For the last fifteen years, addition of anyone to the US cabinet has been a symbol without actual meaning, and so it is today. President Bush just added its 22nd member, and a cabinet that large cannot function effectively. (It's also at the cusp of one of Parkinson's transition points, 22-24 members, where it is about to undergo another major transition and deemphasis.) That's not to say that Bush's creation of an anti-terrorism czar is guaranteed to be a waste of time, but the fact that he has been made a member of the cabinet is meaningless and unimportant. (discuss)
The fundamental problem is something known as the principle of "joint and several liability". What it means is that if you're injured and a lot of other people are at fault, you can pick any one of them (usually the one with the most money or most insurance) and sue that one for the entire amount of damages and he'll have to pay up if he loses. The idea is that he then would sue all the others to get back what he'd lost, though that rarely happens. A different name for this is the "deep pocket fishing" principle. Now one of the strange things is that even if you yourself are primarily responsible for your own injury, you can still sue someone else even if they contributed a percent or two to the whole thing. Sound implausible? It isn't; there are cases of people who got paralyzed while driving drunk, and who successfully sued the bars that served them the drinks. Some cases of application of joint and several liability approach the lunatic, and it's time for it to be reigned in. When you have a case like this one which is so complex and where literally tens of billions of dollars in real damage were done, let alone "pain and suffering", it's going to jam up the court system for years. Take, for example, the flight school. How could it possible be found to be negligent? Were they supposed somehow to read the mind of their students and determine that they were planning a completely unprecedented hijacking and suicide attack? Combine that with the fact that if they had refused to teach Arabs, they might have been subject to a quite legitimate civil rights suit, and you see that they're stuck. There's no way out for them. They are innocent victims in this; no more culpable than are the stores in Switzerland where the knives used were apparently purchased (who will probably also get served, eventually). The group which benefits most from the current law is, needless to say, trial lawyers. These kinds of cases are usually taken on a commission basis, which does help victims because they couldn't otherwise afford legal representation. But it's not uncommon for the lawyers to take one third of the payout, and when you combine that with major league class action lawsuits, the quantities of money involved can be staggering. Some law firms collected fees in 8 figures from the asbestos suits, let alone the tobacco suits. But the potential damages from this could make those look tiny. Do we really want to see some law firm collect a commission in excess of a billion dollars? No-one should be cashing in that way on a national tragedy of this magnitude. With tens of thousands of potential victims, there simply isn't any way that this can be dealt with through the normal mechanisms of our courts, even with class action. I think that it is virtually certain that Congress will pass a special law to handle grievances in this case in a much expedited fashion. What I hope is that they'll also take a closer look at tort law. Reform is overdue. (discuss)
But that's all changing: Intel just announced a P4 which will use a 533 MHz FSB. That clock rate makes no sense whatever for use with RDRAM but is beautifully designed to work with DDR-SDRAM, and in particular with the upcoming QDR-SDRAM. Intel also made a deal with RAMBUS recently which, effectively, paid them off. Their contract had prevented Intel from supporting DDR until 2003, but now Intel will support DDR beginning in 2002 and maybe even sooner than that. Whatever it was that RAMBUS had hold of (Intel's short-and-curlies) their grip seems to be loosening. It's evident that Intel is backing away as fast as they legally can. (discuss)
You mean you don't remember history that way? That's because it was a lie. It was an elaborate deception, possibly the largest, most elaborate and most successful deception in the history of warfare. FUSAG didn't exist; some of the units assigned to it were real (such as the British Guards) but most of the divisions in it were completely mythical. The purpose of Fortitude was, actually, to tie down German units uselessly in Calais so that they could not oppose the actual landing in Normandy, and in fact the majority of German armored units in France sat patiently in that area while their brothers were getting butchered in the hedgerows. The Germans finally wised up when it was too late, after the Cobra breakout. The kinds of things involved in Fortitude stagger the mind. Entire areas were populated with fake aircraft and trucks and tanks, often made of rubber which was inflated. From closeup they wouldn't convince anyone but from air they looked completely convincing. German aircraft were largely not permitted to scout the UK at that point, but some of the ones flying over these phantom units were permitted to live and report back. All the notional divisions and units had real radio units which sent fake traffic back and forth, consistent with what real units of those sizes would have been sending. Occasionally one of the radio units would "slip" and send a message to another in clear with chatty questions like "Know any good brothels in Calais?" In the US, factories were contracted to create unit insignias for divisions which never existed. National Geographic magazine published an issue which had a color spread showing insignias for various units, including some of the ones which didn't exist. Then, that issue was recalled and a new one was issued which didn't have them -- the idea being to try to fool German agents into thinking that the US had slipped up and was trying to hide their existence. Some units were shipped out of the US wearing insignias for fake divisions, and once at sea were issued the correct ones for the units they were actually going to join. During the preparatory bombing of France, for every bomb which was dropped in the Normandy area, two were dropped on Calais on targets consistent with trying to soften the area up for invasion. This is just a small sample of the things which were done; the deception involved thousands of men all over the world. The Germans went for it hook, line, and sinker; and this before the age of big telecommunications -- enormous planning went into figuring how to let Germany know about Fortitude without letting the Germans realize that they were getting fed. In 1944 there was no internet, no international television. Deception campaigns have to be designed for the era in which they take place. It should not come as a surprise that the same kind of thing happens all the time. During the Gulf War, there was also a great deal of deception intended to fool the Iraqis into not realizing that the attack would actually come out of the desert far to the west of Kuwait, the now-legendary "left hook". One part of that deception was feigned preparation for a Marine landing on the coast of Kuwait. This time the force making the feint wasn't phony; there was a real US battle group sitting off the coast of Kuwait and it had attack ships. There was a full marine unit (probably brigade strength) ready to go and it could have landed if the opportunity had arisen. But it wasn't expected to do so; its purpose was to tie down Iraqi forces, and it succeeded in doing that: one third of a US Marine division tied down more than three Iraqi divisions. That is economy of force; it was one of the major contributors to the victory. As a result, those Marines' mates on the shore didn't have to fight those same divisions frontally; they hit them in flank and rolled them up, causing them to rout. (Many of them were then caught on the "Highway of Death" by allied air power.) In that particular operation, the US relied heavily on the big media. The media were kept in the dark about the movement of troops to the west, but they were given ample opportunity to cover that Marine landing force -- and the Iraqis saw that coverage and prepared for it, to their detriment. Of course, that also meant that the US public were deceived, which was unavoidable -- and unimportant. To the men on the ground (and civilians at home), sometimes the orders they receive seem totally nonsensical. They often explain this as a general stupidity by top command, not realizing that there may be a method to their madness and one which cannot be explained at the time without rendering the entire operation useless. By its nature, a deception campaign is intended to fool the enemy about our intentions; and if we tell our own people the truth our enemy will learn it. So don't be surprised if you see things reported in the news about our upcoming war which are later corrected, or intimations of military operations which never happen. They may announce that bin Laden is in a certain place when he's actually somewhere else; they may actually know and may be trying to lull him into thinking he's fooled our people about hs location. There may be small military operations which end up being unimportant -- except that the importance may not be readily apparent, as they may be part of a ruse. It will not necessarily be stupidity or incompetence in the US military; it may be our operations people playing games with our enemies' minds. Maybe these things will be mistakes, but maybe they'll be deliberate. (discussion in progress)
It was not formally a Declaration of War, but it is comparable to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which also was not formally a Declaration of War but which was judged by the courts to have the same legal effect. In addition, under the War Powers act, the President can commit US military forces for sixty days without permission of Congress. (On the 61st day he has to either get approval or withdraw.) (discuss)
Update: The US has rejected this compromise, which is no surprise.
This looks suspiciously like a rhetorical attempt to reign in the US by trying to convince the Bush Administration to forgo unilateral action. That's not acceptable. If the UN wishes to have its own war against terrorism, they're welcome to do so. In the mean time we've got our own and we plan on fighting it. (Possibly starting as soon as this coming Sunday.) (discussion in progress)
Well, if you're Palm, you proceed to go out and threaten trademark-infringement lawsuits against all the people who are running fan websites for your product, who had been providing free advertising for you and support for your users, thereby alienating them all and driving them into the waiting arms of Microsoft. Good work! (Let it not be said that Palm hasn't taken every possible opportunity to screw up. When it goes OOB, this one won't be Microsoft's fault.) (discuss)
On the other hand, the analysis doesn't mention the B1 at all, even though B1's have already been ordered into the region. The B1 was, for a long time, a hanger queen but apparently ten years after they were deployed they've finally got them to the point where they're useful, and this may be their first big war. They'll probably be deployed to Diego Garcia. The analysis mentions some of our carrier groups but doesn't mention the Theodore Roosevelt battle group, which just left port yesterday headed east. Supposedly they're heading for the Mediterranean, but they could be redeployed if need be. One goal of military operations will be defeat in detail (i.e. "divide and conquer"); the idea being to fight one enemy at a time and to apply the full force available to it then once it is defeated to move to the next, rather than trying to fight them all at once. It is likely, therefore, that our naval forces in the Mediterranean will be beefed up while we are operating against Afghanistan, so as to intimidate Libya and Syria to make sure they don't get involved. Khaddafi has already had experience with the US Navy and shows no sign of wanting a return match. Even if Roosevelt group hadn't been scheduled for the Mediterranean already, it would have been sent now. Interestingly, Roosevelt group includes the amphibious attack ship Bataan a light carrier which also serves as the mother ship for a Marine assault group. (Note that "light" is a relative term; Bataan displaces more than any of the Essex-class carriers from WWII.) Likely the group which it would have relieved will remain, as happened when Vinson relieved Enterprise and Enterprise remained in the area. We will not be getting told exact ship movements, but I put the odds at 10:1 that Enterprise and its escorts are sitting off the coast of Pakistan right now, and when bombing starts (which I think is now inevitable) aircraft from Enterprise and missiles launched from its escorts will almost certainly be involved in the first strike. It would be extremely interesting to know if Enterprise group also includes an amphibious attack ship. (discuss)
Not all Islamic groups are this radical, and most Muslims are not even in political activist groups at all. But there doesn't appear to be any solution for the ones that are like this other than to attempt to eradicate them. If we ignore them they will grow larger and do more damage. Even if we don't successfully eradicate them, if they become smaller because of our efforts then they will do less damage. (discuss)
He said "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly." No, I'm afraid not. Macho displays of bravado are not bravery, they're merely stupid. A soldier's job is not to prove how brave he is, it's to win the war he's been assigned to fight in a fashion which leaves his nation with as much power as possible afterwards. It's always desirable to avoid pyrrhic victories. A prudent soldier is always careful with his own people -- willing to risk them when necessary, but not when unnecessary. The best case is to emerge from a war with a victory and an intact army if at all possible. Maher's comment was ignorant of the realities of warfare. (discuss)
May I have the pleasure to know a single place where the U.S. government is collecting money and blood donations for Palestine victims? Is there any place where the U.S. government is working to solve the Kashmir issue? The answer is obvious, there are no such places. The U.S. government has just tasted what the Muslims are tasting for years. This guy seems to be angry at the US not for what it has done, but rather for what it hasn't done. He wants the US to be the world's policeman, to go to places like the Middle East and Kashmir and impose solutions (favorable to his side). For him, the US simply staying out of it isn't sufficient. Kashmir is a particular example of that; so far as I know the US has no interest in the region and has applied no diplomatic capital towards a solution. Both Pakistan and India are allies, so the US can't really favor either. About the only thing the US does is to yell "KNOCK IT OFF!!" at them both when the bodies start to pile up at too alarming a rate. He equates a direct attack by Islamic terrorists on the US to US inaction regarding a trouble spot elsewhere in the world. (Obviously the US has not attacked Kashmir.) He betrays a fundamental faith in the US: what he's saying is that he believes that if the US really wanted to, it could solve those problems, and he seems to feel we have an obligation to do so. He posts recriminations because we haven't. How strange to find a US patriot in Pakistan supporting bin Laden! (discuss)
During World War II, this happened constantly. The British had broken the German ciphers, and the US had broken the Japanese codes and ciphers. (That division of labor wasn't planned, it was just how it worked out.) During the North Africa campaign, one of the critical factors controlling Rommel's ability to attack the British was his ability to get supplies across the Mediterranean from Italy by ship. The Italians were responsible for these supply convoys -- and the British were reading the codes which carried those orders. Obviously when such convoys were planned, the Royal Navy wanted to be out there to meet them, but didn't want to give away the game. So whenever a convoy was planned, the British would send a scout plane out to where the convoy would be. They were scouting constantly anyway, so this wasn't particularly a surprise. That plane would then radio the information back and the Italians would see the plane and intercept its message (and though they couldn't read it, it didn't take too much intelligence to know what it said), so when the RN showed up and attacked it wasn't unexpected. The crew of the plane didn't know wny they were sent where they were; they just thought they'd been lucky. And this kept the secret that the British already knew where the convoy would be. In early 1943 as the campaign in the Solomon islands began to go against Japan, Admiral Yamamoto decided to tour certain front-line positions. His itinerary was radioed to all the units in question so that they could be prepared for him, and the code used was one that the Americans had broken and could read. The message was translated and instantly sent to the office of Admiral Nimitz. The importance of Yamamoto to the Japanese cause can't be underestimated; his death would have the same kind of effect that Churchill's death would have had on the Allies. And now they knew where he'd be on a certain date in the future, which means they had the opportunity to kill him. Should they? This was hotly debated, because it included the possibility that the Japanese might figure out where the information had come from. But they decided to take the risk, and included a cover story that his plans had been discovered by the legendary "Coast Watchers" (whose reputation was enormous anyway, so this wasn't implausible). 16 P-38 Lightnings from Guadalcanal flew to Bouganville and intercepted the Betty bomber in which he flew and shot it down. The effect on the Japanese was devastating; they never found another commander for the rest of the war who was his equal. And they did not change their codes. Sometimes if you reveal intelligence, the mere information itself will let your opponent know where it came from. If that information was only in a few places, that's where they'll search. If the Republic of Pongoraku releases a memo they claim was written from the President of the US to the VP, US security people will then investigate everyone who has the ability to see such memos. This is obvious. If one of them is a Pongoraku spy, there's a good chance they'll figure it out -- and then Pongoraku will lose that asset and not be able to get anything else from him in future. (And likely he'll be killed or imprisoned.) If the message was sent using a particular cipher, that cipher will probably be changed. If Pongoraku was reading that cipher, they'll lose the ability to read it. So obviously Pongoraku is going to want to be careful with the kind of information they receive; if they reveal it at all, they'll couch it in different terms. They'll announce that "We have information that" and then talk vaguely about what they've learned, in such a way as to disguise the fact that they've been reading Presidential memos. They may reveal only part of what they know. They may, in fact, deliberately change some of it and announce things they know are wrong, so as to pretend that their source of information is less than reliable. It's all part of the game. As long as they don't get too specific, then US security people won't have as much of a clue where to look, and the Pongoraku spy will be much less likely to be found, or the specific cipher much less likely to be changed, and Pongoraku will keep that intelligence asset for the future. Which brings us the US accusations against bin Laden. The Taliban are demanding "proof" that bin Laden is involved. (So are some Americans.) But what the Taliban are really demanding is that the US reveal enough information so that the Taliban can figure out where their security leaks are and plug them, depriving the US of future information through those leaks. Even if the US does have iron-clad proof of the involvement of bin Laden, it wouldn't be able to reveal that information, to the Taliban or to us as citizens, without compromising its ability to learn more in future about him and his orga 
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