In article , (John
Schilling) wrote:

Howard Berkowitz writes:

In article , Jack
wrote:

On 2004/01/18 10:05, in article ,
"Damien
R. Sullivan" wrote:

Basically, can a small or lower-tech democracy with non-corrupt
government and motivated citizenry make invasion too expensive to
work?

Possibly not today, but back in 1776....


Exactly. I am _not_ in favor of gun confiscation, but I really can't
accept the idea of the unorganized militia, with sporting weapons,
deterring either regulars or invaders. With a laptop and intimate
knowledge of communications networks, I can be a MUCH nastier deterrent.

More likely, you can come to the same end as Archimedes, accomplishing
no more in the end than one guy with a hunting rifle.

You are missing asymmetry. Archimedes' enemies used low tech, just lots
of it. Losing a major C3I node, or the logistics network, is much more
of a problem to a high-tech invader.

Now, with a laptop *and* a rifle, you can accomplish a lot more than
with either alone. On the defensive side, every detective with a hunch
as to where that nuisance with the laptop is, every house-to-house search
for same, has to allocate a SWAT team per target instead of just a couple
beat cops. Which means the whole process takes them longer for the same
available resources and gives you that much more time to make a nuisance
of yourself with the laptop.

Ahem. If one tracks many of the more destructive hacking attempts, the
computer delivering the attack, the hacker, and the target often are on
different continents. Those SWAT teams had better have LONG range.

Offensively, a lot of what you are going to accomplish with that laptop
is learning interesting things like, e.g., section X of the enemy's
operation is grossly dysfunctional except that mid-level person Y knows
how everything works and is keeping the whole thing running. Is that a
bit of abstract knowledge, or a target for a well-placed bullet?

And then there's the nice combination of a laptop, a gun, and a bunch
of improvised explosives...

Oh, between my academic background in chemistry and a certain amount of
helpful instructions from Fort Bragg, I suspect I just might get by with
improvised explosives.