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Quite a lot of speculative fiction in this thread. In point of fact the US (and Russia and ... probably others) had extensive experience with big telescopes in space pointed at the Earth by the time Hubble was launched. Heck Google maps satellite view can resolve cars in our driveway an a barbeque on our deck. It's a safe bet that the intelligence folk, now and then, could/can do better. Most likely lots better

(BTW, my understanding is that you need very complex adaptive optics to get clear views of small stuff on the surface from space. The optics correct for minor atmospheric issues. Same issues that make stars appear to twinkle.)

I didn't work on Hubble's optics (no one in their right mind would put me to work on optics) and it's not unlikely that I wouldn't be able to talk about exactly what went wrong even if I knew because of the probable overlap with highly classified stuff that is probably still classified. But I suspect it was probably a simple screwup. If you're interested in the official story -- which surely could be true -- see http://www.cio.com.au/article/... (Bottom line; a small procedural error during calibration resulted in the optical elements in Hubble being ever so slightly misaligned.)

Here's a link to two decade old intelligence photos leaked in 1997. http://fas.org/irp/imint/kh-12...

BTW since no one else is likely to mention it, the Webb observatory is about a decade late and 400% or so over budget. Moreover, it's not clear that its imaging in the visual spectrum will be much if any better than the big ground based telescopes like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... scheduled for about a decade from now. If nothing else the EELT is likely to be a good deal easier to tweak/repair/improve than a telescope meandering around hundreds of thousands of km from earth.

(The IR portion of the Webb device is clearly worthwhile although one might question if it is eight billion dollars worth of worthwhile).

I apologize for being grumpy. But I'm kind of tired of listening to hype, fiction and misrepresentation, and of folks continuing to buy into it.

I appear to be surrounded by slow learners.

Microsoft learned the hard way with the xbox 360 kinetic fiasco that nobody like yelling at their TV. I suspect google will quickly find out that nobody likes yelling at light switches either.

It was designed for Bill Gates himself - he loves shouting. No so many people realise that he is a very shouty and bad tempered person.

In an outline of "The Road Ahead" Gates writes: "Some people don't like the idea of talking to a computer. ... But we talk to machines already. When your car or computer does not work, you shout at it. We shout at things all the time." Reference

"[At school] His intensity at times simply boiled over into raw, unthrottled emotion, and occasionally childlike temper tantrums" [from "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the making of the Microsoft Empire"] He was also described by a schoolmate as arguing with his teachers, going up to their desk, and "shouting at the top of his lungs".

Gates, even as a "mature" adult :-

" was known to get into shouting matches with CEOs of rival tech companies .... perhaps the sorest victim of Gates's temper tantrums was Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who said that dealing with Gates's frequent explosions was "like being in hell." Reference

That's what she does. Writes high level non informative articles a lot so her name comes up a lot and she can say she is an expert.

She has never actually said anything that has any rigor what so ever. She needs to just make it look like she is knowledgeable to which every writer she is selling her tripe to.

Of course, the first time you call her on her 'facts' IT's suddenly becasue shes a woman and not because she makes crap up.
http://www.pcworld.com/author/...

http://www.cio.com.au/author/1...

Stick her in the corner with Jon Katz and ignore her.

Another aspect of the problem - Corporate policy in most large companies is to treat all of your IT programmers as identical widgets. This policy stems from HR, Finance, and IT efforts to 'normalize' positions so they can be circumscribed enough to allow 'efficient' allocation of resources, or more damaging, the allocation of resources that can be outsourced wholesale. Ultimately it all comes down to cost reduction. Poor results of IT, coupled with IT being strictly a cost center - leads to this outcome (the cost vs. value proposition as seen through the eyes of the heads of the business).

This of course, drags down everyone with it causing many good people to leave or get caught in the outsourcing net. If they are lucky - they do manage to move up into management (architects etc) - and hopefully they can influence the designs - but again - what is left behind is tragically impossible of effiently implementing even the best designs - so the problem feeds itself as your best get pulled away from programming.

Indications are CTOs are starting to see how this is not working...here's hoping they can get the HR and Finance people to turn this around, but I doubt it. .

::sigh::

http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case/?pp=3

"Common practices portrayed as nefarious.
The documents filed by the city in opposition to Childs' bail reduction contained many vague references and claims of nefarious actions. But to those with experience in network administration, these activities seem like common practice.

For example, the documents portrayed the fact that Childs had configured some number of routers to disable password recovery as a subversive action, when it's common to use that function to secure routers and switches that cannot be physically secured."

...except that NOT what he did.

Common practices portrayed as nefarious.
The documents filed by the city in opposition to Childs' bail reduction contained many vague references and claims of nefarious actions. But to those with experience in network administration, these activities seem like common practice.

For example, the documents portrayed the fact that Childs had configured some number of routers to disable password recovery as a subversive action, when it's common to use that function to secure routers and switches that cannot be physically secured.
- http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case/?pp=3

he had modified the system so that only his password worked, which was the malicious action

Um, that's how passwords work- only a person with the password can access the device.

What he had actually done is ensure that the routers could not have the passwords recovered from them remotely.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case/?pp=3
"The documents filed by the city in opposition to Childs' bail reduction contained many vague references and claims of nefarious actions. But to those with experience in network administration, these activities seem like common practice.
For example, the documents portrayed the fact that Childs had configured some number of routers to disable password recovery as a subversive action, when it's common to use that function to secure routers and switches that cannot be physically secured."

The people who set up his arrest warrant were, well... stupid - "One statement made in the original affidavit for Childs' arrest warrant claimed that Childs' pager went off after he had surrendered it to DTIS officials, and that the page was "sent from one of the routers on the network."". Yes- they thought that network routers could send pages. it was most likely from some network monitoring software, common for administrator to use.

The Patriot Act authorizes the US government to obtain secret warrants to investigate suspected terrorists. But what they are actually doing, is obtaining warrants for the entire US population. Repealing the Patriot Act will not stop this, because the Patriot Act is not their legal authority to seize these records. The US Government has NO authority to seize these records.

The author of the Patriot Act agrees

Fanboi should read something other than MacNews... Samsung has been outselling Apple for quite a while, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Your unreferenced claim is, in fact, incorrect - Apple has sold more iPhones (all models) than Samsung GALAXY phones. Not all Samsung smartphones. Samsung has led the smartphone sales for over a year and is predicted to continue to do so for the next 5 years.

Already happened.

http://securityandthe.net/2008/08/22/rumor-confirmed-both-fedora-and-redhat-servers-hacked/

In connection with the incident, the intruder was able to sign a small
  number of OpenSSH packages relating only to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
  (i386 and x86_64 architectures only) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (x86_64
  architecture only).

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/87516/Debian_Project_servers_hacked

http://www.cio.com.au/article/369912/free_software_foundation_software_repository_hacked/

Oops wrong OS! Please continue with the regularly scheduled bashing, i mean programming, Slashdot.

PulseAudio is not about fixing ALSA, it's about fixing the parts the distros/people think are missing in the Linux audio stack.
Please try these:
http://ossguy.com/?p=347
And from the previous article: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/CleanupAudioJumble#Use%20cases
http://www.cio.com.au/article/320807/open_source_identity_pulseaudio_creator_lennart_poettering

There is tremendous value, anonymous originally stated a month of standby time which was horrendously inaccurate.

How is that not accurate? That is perfectly accurate. In standby mode it lasts around a month (actually a bit over). Just by locking the screen the device can sit for nearly a month and not be out of power, perfect for more occasional use.

For what you are doing an iPad would probably last 12 hours; the 10 hour figure is for video playback while other tasks regularly give a much greater lifespan.

You may want to check in on this serial port adaptor...

Nobody can find the quote "I'll only give it to the Mayor" becuase I'll bet he never said it, but we all fell for such bullshit becuase we grew up watching Batman on TV.

On Monday afternoon, he handed the passwords over to Mayor Newsom, who was "the only person he felt he could trust," according to a declaration filed in court by his attorney, Erin Crane.

He was arrested because:
1) He refused to either provide passwords or create new accounts for the people taking over after he had been told he was being reassigned.

The people requesting the passwords be turned over were not authorized to have them, as per the rules.

2) He hadn't submitted his passwords to a central repository, as required by the policies.

Cite?

3) Had set up the equipment in such a way that recovery wouldn't be easy, like configuration files only being kept in RAM.

It's called Security. Hackers can't get the password from the config file if there's no config file left around. From http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case/?pp=3&fp=&pf=1&fpid= :
"Common practices portrayed as nefarious.
The documents filed by the city in opposition to Childs' bail reduction contained many vague references and claims of nefarious actions. But to those with experience in network administration, these activities seem like common practice.
For example, the documents portrayed the fact that Childs had configured some number of routers to disable password recovery as a subversive action, when it's common to use that function to secure routers and switches that cannot be physically secured."

4) Tried to leave the state.

OH MY GOD! THE BASTARD! TRYING TO TRAVEL FREELY IN AMERICA! HANG THE S.O.B.!!!

He was fired and refused to release property that belonged to his former employer. Period, end of story.

The agreement he had with his (former) employer specifies who he was to release that information to, and under what circumstances. The request did not come from an authorized person, and the circumstances were suspect.

If you work helpdesk in a corporate environment, you might need to handle passwords. If the rules say you are only allowed to give out a an employees password to the employee, you don't give the passwords to anyone else. Not even the employees boss, or the employees boss's boss. Not even your boss, or the CEO. NO ONE, except the employee.

That's basically what happened here.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case/?fp=&fpid=&pf=1

"...what actually happened was that Childs refused to provide his superiors the passwords to the city's core FiberWAN network, effectively preventing them from administering the network. The network continued to function, and no city applications, data, or resources were lost or inaccessible."

Lets see what the "California Counties “Best Policies” for the Countywide Information Security Program" [ http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/coit/Policies_Forms/CCISDA_security.pdf ] has to say about that:

"Here is a list of things to avoid:
  Giving your password over the phone to ANYONE. ...
  Telling your boss your password"

So, the "Best practices" told him to NOT give his superiors the password, and certainly not over the phone (as they requested).

tl,dr: He followed the rules, and got screwed for it.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case/?fp=&fpid=&pf=1

The hit by the bus scenario or wants job security comes to my mind in all of this foolishness...

A couple summations:

• Article1
• Article 2 (the last page highlights his paranoia)

Let's see:

Terry Childs:

• God complex and delusions of grandeur
• Anger management
• Obsessive/possessive
• Paranoid
• General creepy behavior

City of San Fran

• Poorly managed IT by definition when only one person knows the passwords to your routers
• Budget cuts reduced IT to impossible support levels

So I recommend that Terry Childs be put to death just for being a jerk and to make sure non of us ever have to work with him again/interact with him again. Then we fire the City of San Fran CIO and forbid him from ever working in IT again.

(bangs gavel)

A couple summations:

• Article1
• Article 2 (the last page highlights his paranoia)

Let's see:

Terry Childs:

• God complex and delusions of grandeur
• Anger management
• Obsessive/possessive
• Paranoid
• General creepy behavior

City of San Fran

• Poorly managed IT by definition when only one person knows the passwords to your routers
• Budget cuts reduced IT to impossible support levels

So I recommend that Terry Childs be put to death just for being a jerk and to make sure non of us ever have to work with him again/interact with him again. Then we fire the City of San Fran CIO and forbid him from ever working in IT again.

(bangs gavel)

"Can you please point me to this hardware compatibility list that you checked when you were "doing your homework"."
Make a list of motherboards. Google the sound chip. www.google.com/linux "soundchip_name pulseaudio". Positive results are positive. Negative results? Find a different motherboard. Jesus that was undoable...

"It is just a sound server that provides network transparency and better mixing capabilites as an additional layer on top of the kernel sound support."
Yet PulseAudio requires all sort of features so you need to have a Pulseaudio fixed Alsa driver or else it will screw up :)

But hey you got the driver part correctly... not that it matters because almost no Alsa drivers that weren't fixed worked.

Some source: http://www.cio.com.au/article/320807/open_source_identity_pulseaudio_creator_lennart_poettering/?

"At one point he was concerned about the security of the FiberWAN routers in remote offices, so he had them set up without saving the config to flash. "If they go down, I'll get alerted, and connect up to them and reload the config." Great, except we have power outages all the time in this city, some of those devices aren't on UPSs, and what happens if you're on vacation? And what about the 15 to 60 minutes it might take you to connect up and reload? He eventually conceded and (ahem) decided that disabling password recovery was sufficient security."

After reading that would you reboot any of those routers? Source

You're right. My mistake. Thank you.

He also had a felony pled down to a misdemeanor in the 1990s

http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case?pp=2&fp=&fpid=

"In 1995, prosecutors said, Childs was again arrested in Kansas and charged with aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon. The case was reduced to misdemeanor weapons possession."

And he had stuff he shouldn't have at home

"For example, the city's court filings claim that police found an ID badge and access card of one of Childs' colleagues in his house, and that Childs had lists of usernames and passwords of other city employees, including his direct supervisor, Herb Tong. Childs' having these materials is difficult to justify, if true."

From http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case?pp=2&fp=&fpid= "DTIS officials demanded that Childs relinquish the usernames and passwords used to access the FiberWAN network devices, and Childs refused to do so. He was suspended for insubordination on July 9. " He was arrested shortly thereafter. DTIS is the city's IT department. His refusing to disclose passwords to a public court has nothing to do with why he was arrested and found guilty.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case?pp=1&fp=&fpid=

This guy took over this system because he felt entitled and a sense of ownership. He created a little fiefdom which grew in power as the department was gutted due to budge cuts.

http://www.cio.com.au/index.php?q=article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case

Then he got all uppity because someone else was auditing the network, oh someone of higher rank than he was. And then he threatened that supervisor into running away from him and hiding in their office.

It sounds like he was full of himself, the hard work he had done and felt like he should have all the power over it.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/253823/why_san_francisco_network_admin_went_rogue

I wish I were on the jury so I could vote guilty.

This guy took over this system because he felt entitled and a sense of ownership. He created a little fiefdom which grew in power as the department was gutted due to budge cuts.

http://www.cio.com.au/index.php?q=article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case

Then he got all uppity because someone else was auditing the network, oh someone of higher rank than he was. And then he threatened that supervisor into running away from him and hiding in their office.

It sounds like he was full of himself, the hard work he had done and felt like he should have all the power over it.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/253823/why_san_francisco_network_admin_went_rogue

I wish I were on the jury so I could vote guilty.

What I don't quite understand is how Childs was hired by The City to begin with given his criminal past.

http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case?pp=2&fp=&fpid=

Sure, he was convicted of burglary when he was only 17, so I'm not sure if he was classified as a juvenile under Kansas law. He was then charged with misdemeanor weapons possession years later.

The guy did his time, so I'm not holding anything against him peronsally....I just find it surprising that a government agency would hire someone with that kind of record.

His supervisors wanted the passwords.
The Mayor wanted the passwords - secure or not if the Mayor of the city you work for wants a password, you give it to them. I work in the public sector and while the head of the agency isn't my supervisor, if she asked for a password that she didn't need, I'd write it down for her.

http://www.cio.com.au/index.php?q=article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_childs_case&fp=&fpid=

"First, despite the many news reports claiming that Childs had shut down all or part of the city and county of San Francisco's network, what actually happened was that Childs refused to provide his superiors the passwords to the city's core FiberWAN network, effectively preventing them from administering the network."

"Following the completion of the FiberWAN, Childs looked upon his creation as art -- so much so that he applied and was granted a copyright for the network design as technical artistry. Skeptical of his colleagues' abilities, Childs became the sole administrator of the FiberWAN, and the only person with the passwords to the routers and switches that comprised the network. This state of affairs was widely known throughout DTIS, and Childs was the only point of contact for changes, troubleshooting, and overall management of this network."

I've looked around and around and see no references to this written policy, just that he'd only agree to give them to the Mayor in person.

Did he do half of what the City of San Francisco said he might do? Nope, but should he have given up the passwords to his damned supervisors? Yes.

This is what the City of San Francisco gets for letting a felon run their network.

"The possession of ammunition may have raised flags with the police, because 25 years ago, at the age of 17, Childs was arrested and convicted of aggravated burglary, and spent four years in a Kansas prison. In 1995, prosecutors said, Childs was again arrested in Kansas and charged with aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon. The case was reduced to misdemeanor weapons possession"

"I have worked with hundreds of NZ schools IT in my career"

In what capacity, what are the names of these schools.

The schools with Linux networks BURN CASH on consultants .."

Absolute rubbish, once a Linux server is installed and configured, (and baring hardware failure)it just runs. Perhaps you should have consulted the people at Albany Senior High School.

The tight time frame -- two weeks for evaluation, one week for design and two weeks for implementation -- didn't create too much disruption, Brennan said. "Although everything wasn't as polished as it could have been, when the school opened all of the core functionality was there. And it's been running for a year with no significant intervention. It hasn't really been touched in any fundamental way since then "

Where do you get your 'BURN CASH on consultants' from. Come again .. perhaps you aren't very good at your job.

"This school is new as such has lots of startup funding .."

Where does it say they had lots of startup funding and running for a year is hardly new.

"Posting AC for obvious reasons"

Because you're talking total bullshit ..

Exactly. The US is spending 2.6% of GDP on R & D. It is number two in the G7. Obama has said he wants to bring the spending up to 3.0%.

FWIW, I don't take this as a troll, but anecdotal. If you've held the same position twice, then you're not in a strong position to speak outside of that experience.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/2244391
http://www.cio.com.au/article/68397/munich_government_chooses_linux_over_microsoft
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7008
http://linuxscorecard.blogspot.com/2007/09/this-blog-will-spring-back-to-life.html

Although I'm not citing "privately-owned" businesses, and I'm not sure how many of those there are that are multi-billion dollar concerns, I am suggesting that there are those with more than 10+ years experience making the Linux over Windows call - and leaving it as a exercise to uncover more.

As for number of attack vectors being wider for FOSS than Windows - please, try beer, it's better than the Kool-Aide - really.

Actually, the answer is yes.

At the expense of shops who were using no computer at all. Or abacuses.

I would laugh if the situation weren't so serious for my company. We are on the verge of a disaster.

Chisembop manual sales have been flat for 5 years.

Adding machine sales are down 38%.

Calculator sales are down 52%, including the newest hand held models.

Slide rule sales are down 79%.

Analytical engine sales are down 93%.

Tabulator sales are down 98%.

Our abacus miniaturization project is running into problems with prior art by a "major" competitor.

To top it off, our hope for a Multitronic breakthrough appears to have dangerous side effects after four models that were outright failures.

Unless we can pump up our mentat outsourcing service, or complete development of our Make me a Rainman! kit, we're doomed! Doomed I tell you! :(

Think about it for a second: they patent something very general on "limited resource computing devices".

This patent definition is not going to change over the years, but the definition of "limited resource computing" will. In 4 years from now, anything that can't run longhorn may fall under this category!

Now they have a couple of years to create a precedent where a similar patent is protected with success in the courtrooms. Precedent is law. So when the time is right, MS would be able to prevent older non-DRM hardware from selling. As a bonus they'll get people like the RIAA to fight this in court for them, so they won't even have to actually create the precedent themselves.

Have a look at this: Microsoft courts governments in strategy shift

I think there is a clear pattern here. However let's be honest, MS isn't the only one playing this game in recent times.