Saw this story over at yahoo, and it doesn’t sound right to me. Can anybody debunk this or confirm it? Thanks.
It was in the Boston Globe as well.
Will I lose points for spelling mistakes and grammatical issues?
Will they be grading on a curve?
Do I think this is one of the silliest things to come out of all this?
I don’t know whether to feel comforted or terrified. On the one hand, maybe the guy down the block does have a truly great idea, but until today no one would listen to him. On the other hand, if the Pentagon is running out of ideas,… I don’t want to think about it!
Why not carve up the country a bit? Much of the problem with Afghanistan is because it is made up of a few different ethnicities: Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hezeras, and Uzbeks. But if you look at the division of these ethnicities on a map, they’re more or less neatly divided. Why not have the Tajik portion given to Tajikistan, and the Uzbek portion to Uzbekistan. Hezeras, which are in the middle of the country could become their own country, and the same with Pashtuns. This would at least make the country smaller, and less of a problem. I know that the UN doesn’t like redrawing of boundaries on countries, but since the original boundaries for Afghanistan was pulled out the collective ass of Russians, British, and other non-concerned parties, what difference does it make?
On a related note, (I’m not making this up) my brother-in-law, who is a very dedicated hacker/computer geek type, received a letter a week or two ago addressed to his online name (a bit Matrix like, huh?). The letter, which I believe he said was from the FBI, was asking him to help in money tracking efforts for the government! Has anyone else heard anything about this sort of thing?
How about make Afghanistan “Utah II,” or “Utah Mideast?” Just kidding, of course. 
BTW: Very interesting news piece. Hmmm…
Sounds similar to an article in News of the Weird.
Regarding whether or not this is true or not-
In times like this, its best to go straight to the source. In this case, it’s the Pentagon-
I don’t know whether to feel honored, or shocked, like Keeve’s
I imagine there may be a number of retirees from sensitive positions who may want to come out of retirement temporarily as a contractor (for a fee) to help out. This would include people from Scotland Yard, etc. I think this is a great idea because everyone seems to be working overtime with anthrax, etc.
I saw this discussed somewhere else in the last week. Can’t remember where.
But the gist of what I read was that none of the US law enforcement agencies are “deputizing” hackers. In fact, they’re prosecuting anyone they find illegally breaking into any financial institution.
Your brother-in-law is either pulling your leg or he’s being recruited by a group of hackers. Apparently, there are at least a couple of hacker groups who are bragging that they can follow terrorist and drug money trails. Though none of them have provided any substantial proof of their alleged abilities.
Am I missing something?